Saints could go top of the Premier League for the first time in their history today – but Jose Fonte says the players’ feet remain firmly on the ground.

Ronald Koeman’s side start the day in second place and could reach the summit of the table with a win at St Mary’s against QPR, although that would also require Chelsea to suffer an unlikely home defeat to Aston Villa.

The mere prospect of such a scenario, though, indicates how strong a beginning to the season Saints have had.

However, Fonte has cautioned against getting carried away, saying it is too soon to say if they are better than they were last term.

But he admits the goal is to improve on last season’s success, and he believes they have a deeper squad from which to try to achieve that.

“It’s too early to judge anything, it’s only five games,” he said. “We players and everyone at the club has their feet on the ground, make no mistake about it.

“We know it’s only five games, we know this is a hard league and it’s very hard to win games. We are taking it step by step.

“We want to improve every day. The manager wants us to be better every day, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“But, obviously, as a club and as a team we want to do better than last year. I believe that we have more depth in the squad this year, more options than we had last year.”

While Saints are heavily favoured today, centre-half Fonte well remembers two seasons ago when a struggling QPR visited St Mary’s and earned a surprise 2-1 win.

“That’s why I keep saying there’s no easy games in the Premier League, simple as that,” he said.

“You saw what happened to Manchester United (against Leicester). They were winning 3-1 and they lost 5-3.

“This is the best league in the world, you’re never guaranteed anything, so we need to give ourselves the best chance possible to win a game of football and that’s what we’re going to try and do – approach the game as professionally as possible and in the best way we can.

“We have five wins in a row, we want to keep adding to that. We know it’s hard, but we’re at home and we will try and give a good show and try to get the three points.”