Ralph Hasenhuttl hailed his relentless Southampton but admitted he feared a repeat of Norwich City's Carrow Road comeback in a 2-0 Premier League win on Friday.

Hasenhuttl exacted a measure of revenge for a 2-1 defeat in the corresponding fixture that marked Dean Smith's first in charge of the strugglers.

Che Adams and Oriol Romeu's thumping strike put away a lacklustre City to maintain the Saints' bid for a top 10 finish.

"It was a very disappointing game against them last time," said Hasenhuttl.

"It was a bit similar, because when they were 1-0 down, they never give up and you could feel after their changes, they had more moments and they were believing in what they were doing, so they were not so easy to break down.

"We learned from the Norwich game before and tried to do a better job. We knew that these are the toughest wins because everyone expected it.

"But this is against teams that are super organised and fighting for everything, so it is not easy. But the way we managed it, it was an impressive win I think.

"I have seen that we had 2.9 expected goals to 0.4, it didn't feel that dominant or that clear, but we had a lot of good chances where we could score and in the end we needed a fantastic shot from Ori to calm the game down.

"You look at ten minutes struggling in the second half and we had a few problems, but we changed the shape.

"What I really like at the moment is the crowd is fully believing in us.

"We have had it different in the past when we have perhaps been struggling, but the belief is there that we are strong enough to switch to the next gear to kill these games.

"When we take consistently our points, then we can look at this target (top 10 finish), no question.

"There is a big chance this season to end up in the top half, it would be the first time in five years, so it is a big target and we have a target in the FA Cup with a chance to go to the next round, and we want to take it."