Saints kicked off the first of their pre season games in Holland with a win over Ronald Koeman's hometown club.

Saints stepped up their training schedule by playing a solid side and then making substitutions rather than making this about giving everyone a game and they benefitted with a 3-0 win.

The line up was as follows.

: Gazzaniga, Martina, Fonte, Yoshida, Targett (Soares 45), Wanyama (Reed 82), S Davis (Clasie 45), Juanmi (Ward-Prowse 45), Mane (Rodriguez 67), Tadic (McQueen 74), Long (Pelle 67).

This saw the debut of Jordy Clasie on as a second half sub.

Saints were in control from the start and had several chances to take the lead before José Conte headed home Dusan Tadic's corner on 24 minutes.

On 52 minutes Cedric Soares & Tadic irked well together on the right and the ball was pulled back for Sadio Mane to make it 2-0 and it was again Tadic who laid on the 3rd twenty minutes later to complete the scoring when he laid a defence splitting pass for Pelle to finish not only the move but the scoring.

All in all a good work out fro Saints designed on getting the tem to work as a unit rather than as in Austria when it was about giving the squad time on the pitch.

The win could have been larger and hopefully this bodes well for our Europa League tie against Finesse.

Photo: Action Images

tempo77 added 18:57 - Jul 18 Good result and work out, will be interesting to see the team selection and performance against Feyenoord.
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SaintDownUnder added 21:25 - Jul 18 Just seen the goals, Tadic looks back to his best......
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SaintBrock added 14:02 - Jul 19 Excellent. It is important to win in pre-season to build belief and some momentum. We looked quite good on the ball and one could hazard a guess that Ron is beginning to work out who is best starting XI will be. Any newcomers now will be late to the party and need some time to get to peak fitness so unlikely to walk straight into the first team. Even if we nail down an experienced CB, expect Fonte / Yoshida to start at St James's.

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