Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has stated he is "realistic" about his side's chances of qualifiying for next season's UEFA Champions League, following their rather disappointing 1-0 away defeat at the hands of West Brom earlier this afternoon.
A superb volley after just 74 seconds from young English striker Saido Berahino sealed all three points for the hosts, and The Saints were forced to rue their missed goal-scoring chances as they lost their second game in the space of six days after their 2-0 home defeat against Liverpool last Sunday sees them four points off the top four spots with the majority of their rivals still left to play.
Have a read of the match report, written by me, here.
Koeman had this to say, after their disappointing defeat: "I was always realistic, never I was thinking that we would qualify for the Champions League because [there are] a lot of big teams who normally fight for that. We try to win more points than we did last season and if we play our way of playing then we will see what happens. We are not focused on the position on the table, we are focused on our football. That's the best solution and at this time, it's still the best solution.
The whole team performance is a little bit down on the beginning of the season - we try to change that, change players, positions, we have a little bit less confidence than we had."
On his 3-5-2 shape with Bertrand and Clyne wing-backs: "When I have to do the line-up again I will do the same. We played this season two or three times with this system and we won every game, the players know the system, we have players to play it. But at 1-0 down every time we had three defenders against one attacker and that was the decision I made to change because at 1-0 down it changes the game."