Reasons to be cheerful

Younes Kaboul listed two reasons to be cheerful after Sunday’s 1-0 win against high-flying Southampton.

“We are delighted because of two things; firstly we’ve now got two weeks to prepare for Man City away and it’s always good to win before the international break which we didn’t against Liverpool and it killed us a little bit mentally,” said the skipper.

“The second thing is that we were 12th before kick-off but now we’re sixth so we’re happy about that.”

Christian Eriksen struck the only goal of the game to land a deserved win with the Saints - six wins on the spin before Sunday - only seriously troubling us twice in the second half.

“After a big game against Arsenal and then Thursday against Besiktas it was important for us to get the three points,” added Younes.

“It was not easy, we played against a quality team that have started the season incredibly well.

“We controlled the game and kept a clean sheet, which is very important. Hugo was big again for us and to keep a clean sheet against a team like Southmapton was good as they’re always a threat going forward.”

Younes continued his developing central partnership with Jan Vertonghen, so impressive at Arsenal and now with a clean sheet in the bag.

“It’s a joy to play with Jan, we’ve a good understanding but we can still improve,” reasoned Younes. “We can be even better. It’s still early in the season and we’re working hard in training to be 100 per cent all the time.”