Jay Rodriguez is hoping he can make a big impression for Southampton over the course of the final five games of the season.
The forward returned from an injury lay-off against Newcastle United on Saturday, as Saints continued their push for a top-seven finish with a 3-1 victory against the Magpies.
And having made his comeback in the closing stages, Rodriguez is now hoping to play a big role for Ronald Koeman’s side between now and the end of the campaign.
“Fitness wise I feel great,” Rodriguez told youtube.com/southamptonfc. “I’ve ticked all the boxes that I needed to, I’ve trained hard and any time I can try and improve my fitness I will.
“That’s the only thing I can do – keep working hard and keep working at it to improve. I can’t get ahead of myself. You have to just take each training session as it comes and take each game as it comes. That’s the main focus every weekend.
“Even when I was fit and playing full seasons, every training session you can improve and that’s the way I look at it. Each session you have to improve.”
And what is the aim for the team between now and the end of the season?
“The aim is to take each game as it comes,” Rodriguez explains. “We want to finish as high as we possibly can. If you look at how we’re doing and how we’re playing, we fully deserve to be where we are.
“You think back at some of the results and you could argue we probably could’ve done more. I think where we are now we’re in a good place and we’ll finish strongly.”