More from Saints' executive director Les Reed

Les Reed on a half term report for Claude Puel…

We had a similar situation at half term last year and we did exactly the same thing.

Normally at this time of the year I would sit down the various heads of all departments to see what we have done so far, how we can learn from it and what we can do to improve for the last six months of the season and finish on a high. It’s really no different.

We have finally had a bit of time to sit down and do that with Claude, the first team staff and everybody around the first team like I have with the academy manager and everybody else.

We are confident that we have learned a lot from the quick turnaround between games.

If you look at the top half of the calendar it’s three games every week. It’s incredible. As we get through January things start to even out again.

Claude really hasn’t had an opportunity to do much in terms of coaching, rather recover from matches and prepare for the next one.

The ability to have the players out on the pitch longer and do functional training sessions and the ability to work on different systems of play and so on have been very limited.

He has taken every opportunity he can but the sheer turnaround of games, and also the travelling in the Europa League and the week is gone before you know it.

Les Reed on why Claude Puel is right man for the long term future of the club…

Absolutely.

We have seen this week managers being sacked, and often in extraordinary circumstances, and maybe because of things they can’t control.

We picked Claude for a reason, and the main reason being his experience, because he has had a lot of experience in European football and that is where we hope to be heading on a regular basis.

He has been successful at the top of the league where he has coached and has taken teams from the bottom to the top, and young players from the academy to world class, with (Thierry) Henry a classic example, because he’s a teacher. He improves players.

If you want to go down that route you have to give someone time. Teaching takes time.

He feels excited about the potential of not just our academy players, and look at what he’s done for Sam McQueen, Josh Sims, and Prowsey (James Ward-Prowse) has become a better player this season.

He can do that for Jordy Clasie, that’s why we bought Pierre Hojbjerg. He wasn’t the finished product but one for the future.

We had to choose a coach that shared that philosophy and had the passion to teach and make players better.

In order to do that, any teacher will tell you, you need time.

What’s important for us is to support him in such a way he gets that time and opportunity to make those players better.

Of course, we are very demanding because we want to do that and be the ‘best of the rest’ as people keep calling it.

We still want to be the top of the league we are in if you take out the mega clubs.

Les Reed on whether Saints have hit a glass ceiling in terms of their league progress…

That’s what we have to achieve. We might aspire to be above that, but what we have to achieve is to be at the top of that group on a consistent basis.

That why when a season like last season comes along, we might be able to take advantage of it.

I don’t like naming other clubs but Leicester won the league and are now in a relegation battle. We don’t want to do that. We want to be consistent in everything we do, and build a club long term that can always be ready to go through the door if it opens, but on a regular basis and not just a one off basis if everything falls into place for us.

That’s what we want to have, is that consistency in those sort of positions in the league, at the same time to continue to aspire to do better than that if the opportunity arises based on our resources and circumstances.

Fans will always look at the players that have gone through and gone on. You often see ‘what if they had kept all those players?’ If we’d had kept Lovren we wouldn't have had Alderweireld. If we’d have kept Alderweireld we wouldn’t have had van Dijk. The notion they might be playing together in one Southampton team? Man City could maybe pull all those players together.