Saturday 26 September 2015 20:21, UK
Southampton boss Ronald Koeman is delighted with the contribution of big-money signing Virgil van Dijk since his move to Saints from Celtic.
Dutch centre-back Van Dijk scored the opening goal in Southampton's 3-1 victory over Swansea at St Mary's Stadium on Saturday afternoon, leaping above former Saints midfielder Jack Cork and nodding past Lukasz Fabianski.
Koeman believes there is still plenty more to come from the defender, who as well as getting on the scoresheet, also did an excellent job of keeping Swansea attackers Andre Ayew, Bafetimbi Gomis and Gylfi Sigurdsson in check.
"I'm very pleased [with Van Dijk]" Koeman told Sky Sports.
"He's a good player and he's still 24-years-old, he can improve and he has to learn.
"He's shown his personality, it's a good header that you saw for the first goal. He's an important player for our possession because he has good passing and a good partnership with Jose Fonte."
A Ki Sung-Yueng own goal and Sadio Mane's arrowed strike made it 3-0 to Southampton just after the hour, before Sigurdsson pulled a goal back late on for Swansea from the penalty spot.
Having won just once in their opening six Premier League games, Koeman praised his side's composure in front of goal and believes it was the difference between the two teams on the day.
"It was an important win today, without staying at our level," Koeman said.
"They [Swansea] had changed their system when they went 1-0 down to Manchester United [in August], and they played their last Capital One Cup game out of this system, with 4-4-2 and a diamond in the midfield.
"We had some problems in our organisation and our pressing. They had some good free shots out of the box but luckily nobody scored from those shots because that was not good organisation.
"The difference today between Swansea and Southampton was that we were very clinical and they weren't."
