Saints boss Ralph Hasenhuttl sees ‘big chance’ of top-half Premier League finish

Ralph Hasenhuttl believes Southampton have a “big chance” to finish in the top half of the Premier League this season after they cruised to a 2-0 win over Norwich on Friday.

Che Adams and Oriol Romeu struck for the Saints as they extended their unbeaten league run to five games.

Adams bundled the ball over the line for the opener in the 36th minute before Romeu doubled their tally in the 88th minute with a powerful volley, to lift Saints into ninth place ahead of the rest of the weekend’s fixtures.

“When you play consistently – and this is how we are looking at the moment in what we are doing – then there is a big chance this season to end up in the top half of the table,” Hasenhuttl said.

“It would be the first time in five years that we would manage this, so it is a big target.”

Adams’ goal was his eighth in his last 15 Saints appearances, after a long wait for his first goal of the season, and Hasenhuttl was pleased with his performance.

“Absolutely (he is doing well), also working always very good for the team, it’s good to watch that a lot of things that we are working on are getting better and better,” the Southampton boss said.

“These are tough wins to take, we have now two with two clean sheets against clubs at the bottom of the table and looked very in control, very comfortable and very confident.”

Max Aarons admitted Norwich did not execute their game plan as they registered just one shot on target in a lacklustre defeat on the south coast.

“We came here with a game plan and we haven’t done it well enough tonight,” the Canaries defender told the club’s official website.

“We gave ourselves too much defending to do. A few unforced errors and we didn’t do what we spoke about before the game.

“We’ve come here and lost and we’ll be disappointed tonight, but we’ll be straight back to it tomorrow. We’ve got huge games ahead now.”