Ronald Koeman has confirmed that he and his squad had a frank discussion after the defeat against Liverpool on Wednesday night.

Ronald Koeman and his squad sat down and had a frank open and honest discussion after the debacle against Liverpool.

Koeman was pleased that there was no shortage of opinion and is hopeful that this will reap dividends against Aston Villa.

“When we start here in Southampton I am a coach and I have always discussions to my players,” he said.

“I believe in interaction, I believe in opinions of players.

“It’s so easy to tell them go left or go right, but I prefer that they tell me which way they have to go and that’s a discussion because they have to play and I’m a manager to play the players.

“Sometimes you have to push.

“It was a good interaction and they are not stupid, they know what they could do better.

“It’s good to have after Wednesday the next one because they can show the reaction.”

But Koeman still believes that Saints strength lies in going forward and he wont sacrifice the attacking side of things to be more defensive tactically.

“Still I believe in the way how we play, how we like to press our opponents, but that pressing needs to be a team pressing,” he insisted.

“If something failed last Wednesday it was misunderstanding to press, the next behind was waiting, and even by attacking we didn’t have a good defensive organisation.

“Defenders need to ask themselves when we are attacking ‘what’s my position now if we lose the ball’, we have enough defenders, we close the gaps and that’s what we have to learn.

“Sometimes it’s too open because we take a risk when we have the ball, we like play offensive, we like to give freedom to the left or right full backs.

“Then the rest of the players and the defenders needs to have good communication and we have to improve.

“I like to play football, to dominate and to play offensively.

“That’s part of the philosophy and the quality of the players.”

Photo: Action Images

DPeps added 09:08 - Dec 6 I should think there was another frank discussion after yesterday's game
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A1079 added 17:38 - Dec 6 Usually the need to have such a meeting is a bad sign and rarely have long term positive outcomes. Even worse when they feel the need to tell everyone that they have had such a meeting.
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