Ronald Koeman looking forward to “special” Southampton return

Ronald Koeman believes Southampton’s supporters should “respect” his achievements at St Mary’s, but insists he is not “afraid” of running the gauntlet ahead of his return there with Everton.

“At the moment it’s a case of me keeping my head down and continuing the additional work with our physios and sport science team to keep that extra edge”.

A repeat of that latter scoreline – coincidentally the margin of the Blues’ victory in this fixture last season – would go down a treat with the travelling Evertonians and go a long way to restoring confidence in Koeman’s ability to manage his way out of the fallow period that followed his impressive start to life at Goodison Park.

“The club put him in a hard situation but I think everyone was surprised he left but we have moved on”.

“Everton have had a great start to the season and their form has tailed off a little bit since”. However, I’ve been supporting Everton long enough to know that we don’t capitalise on such advantages.

“I understand different opinions and (crowd) reactions”. The club have done it again, finding a decent centre half when another one has left. “I was proud about my time there”.

Everton sold John Stones for 48 million pounds (US$59.77 million) and if we were to sell Van Dijk, which is inevitable given our track record, we should be asking north of that price.

“I don’t speak about memories but I have spoken to him but that is between him and me, ” said the 25-year-old Dutchman.

“We brought some new players in as well so we feel like we’re on a good path and we’ve got it all still to play for”.

In November 1971 we beat Southampton 8-0 at Goodison.

“I have never heard anything”, he said about the transfer speculation. I don’t see that happening on Sunday but it would be nice. “We enjoy being a part of those games, the European nights. I think that’s the best thing you can do”. We want to have the good feeling that we had last especially like the one against Liverpool.

Van Dijk said: “We can not panic”.

But when Koeman first held talks with Reed over the possibility of him joining the now annual summer exodus from the south coast he also sought assurances he would be given significant funds to invest in his squad and help turn Southampton into Champions League challengers.

Romelu Lukaku has failed to score in 13 of his last 17 top-flight appearances away from home.

However, Joe Royle- who guided Everton to FA Cup glory in 1995 – has backed the current boss put the current struggles behind him and “wouldn’t rule him out” of winning a cup to end the club’s 21-year drought.

And while more than a few boos can be expected, the Frenchman hopes the crowd will not be too harsh on the former Barcelona player when he returns for the Premier League clash on Sunday. He is adored already.

Koeman thinks his former club are feeling the effects of competing on different fronts.