Ronald Koeman hailed the burgeoning right sided partnership of Dusan Tadic and Nathaniel Clyne after the pair shone in last night’s 3-1 win over Brighton.
Tadic hit an impressive goal to open the scoring, and linked up superbly with Clyne as he bombed on down the right.
It is a real bright spot of pre-season, and something Koeman is delighted about.
“You see that the players are little by little in a good physical shape and when you are in a good physical shape you can show your qualities,” said Koeman.
“He (Tadic) scored a great goal, the first one, and it was a great tandem with Clyne on the right side and always run inside and the other outside.
“We played well down that side and Tadic had a good match.”
There was also a first 45 minutes for Ryan Bertrand, just a day after he joined on a season long loan from Chelsea.
“It was a first one and that was the reason I took him off after 45 minutes,” admitted Koeman.
“We are very pleased to have Ryan in the squad because he’s a great player, he’s still a young player but with experience of the Chelsea level and it’s a good signing for us.”
Koeman was also pleased to get some game time for Victor Wanyama, who has spent a lot of time travelling to Kenya and back for international duty.
“It was important because he travelled a lot and he has to play again this Sunday for Kenya.
“It’s difficult for him because travelling a lot means you can’t train normally like the rest of the players can do and that is difficult.
“I was happy he could play 60 minutes to be in a good shape which we need of every player.”
The Saints manager is happy with how things are going in pre-season, as well he might be as the winning run continued at the Amex Stadium.
“I think we are in a good way,” he said.
“We try to change some movements in the team and we do that a lot in the training sessions and you see a lot the difference of what we like and what we expect.
“We need time for that and to be 100 per cent in a physical way because then it’s easier to play that system.”
He added: “The first ten minutes was a difficult start but after that we controlled well, we had good possession and fantastic goals.
“We dominated totally in the match and maybe in the end we were a little bit more sloppy than we needed to be and they scored to make it 1-3 but in total it was a good game for us in pre-season.”
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