Ronald Koeman hailed a “great” Saints performance as they demolished Newcastle 4-0 at St Mary’s.

Saints were utterly rampant against Newcastle and secured the same scoreline against former manager Alan Pardew’s team as they achieved last season.

The win lifted Saints into the top four of the early table and gave further confidence that this could be a top season, despite all the summer turmoil.

“We had a great start,” said Koeman.

“We spoke about it because in our last match at home against West Bromich we didn’t do it in a good way and the tempo was too low. We had a great start, a high tempo and the big difference was we were really pressing in the beginning, we didn’t give them the time to build up.

“We scored two fast goals and that gave us the confidence to play in a good way.”

He added: “It was a great performance during the first 45 minutes.

“We work very hard in every session.

“We know we need time, we know we have a lot of changes in the team but that’s the reason you do training sessions to improve the qualities of the players and to bring the qualities of the players together, to have a good organisation in attack and defence.

“It is going well until now.”

Koeman also praised the efforts of Francis Benali, who completed his 1,000 mile at half time and undoubtedly helped create a wonderful atmosphere inside the ground.

“It was a great run,” smiled Koeman.

“The fans were great, the support that we had, and finally we had a win at home after two games.

“What he did is amazing, to run that kind of miles for a good charity and I admire that kind of person.”