Koeman hails unbelievable spirit

An own-goal from Romelu Lukaku in the first half at St Mary’s was followed by goals from Graziano Pellè and Maya Yoshida to seal a convincing win against Roberto Martinez’s side.

After a difficult run, Koeman was thrilled with the performance of his side as they picked up their eighth clean sheet of the campaign.

“That’s the best medicine,” said Koeman speaking to the club’s official YouTube channel. “To have a good positivity about the game is important because winning games brings players with more confidence.

“We worked very hard and I think that was the key today to win the game. We showed unbelievable spirit today and that was the difference between last Tuesday and today.

“It was a great reaction and the team performance was outstanding. It was not the best football game, we changed the system a little bit in defence and they didn’t create a lot.

“Fraser [Forster] had two fantastic saves in the last 15 minutes but the teamwork was outstanding and that was the difference. We always put pressure on ourselves to win games.

“We do not want to have these kinds of defeats that we had in the last few weeks. Today was a fantastic example of how you have to work as a football player and they showed that today. That was the difference between Everton and Southampton.”

With a number of suspensions and injuries, Koeman switched to a 3-5-2 formation for the game against the Toffees, and it paid off to good effect, with Shane Long setting up Pellè for the second goal from a Nathaniel Clyne cross.

“We had two training sessions to train with the formation and to tell them about this new system and the most important is you need players who can play the system,” Koeman added.

“We have enough centre-backs, we have Clyney on the right and we have Ryan [Bertrand] on the left. With Shane behind Graziano he can make the runs.

“I think the moment was good to change the system. Finally, always if the coach is winning, he is doing a good job!”

The change of system saw youngster Harrison Reed handed his first start in the Premier League and the midfield repaid Koeman’s faith.

“One of the reasons to put him in was because he’s that type of football player with the spirit,” Koeman added. “That gave the team a lot of energy and we needed that energy. He gave a fantastic performance.”