Mark Hughes feels the work undertaken during the international break can help reinforce the belief in his Southampton side.
Hughes’s first game in charge saw Saints reach the Emirates FA Cup semi-final at Wigan, with a 2-0 success.
And with attentions turning back to a vital Premier League encounter at West Ham United, the boss is hoping to back-to-back wins can give much needed momentum.
“We got some more ideas across in terms of how I want us to approach games and hopefully that’ll be better embedded now given the time we’ve had together as a group,” Hughes said.
“Clearly not everyone has been back, but everyone was available to train on Thursday and Friday so that’s key leading into the game.
“It was important that we continued in the same vein. We had a good positive result against Wigan, which was important for the group in terms of confidence.
“I sense that there was a little bit of a weight lifted from their shoulders given the second-half performance certainly where we looked a confident side and were able to win the game more importantly.
“We’re hoping that those memories and those feelings will enhance our ability to get a good result because we’re looking for momentum.
“We’re at that stage of the season, the business end, where the teams that can gain a bit of momentum get themselves out of trouble.”
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