Southampton manager Ronald Koeman has challenged his players to defy their doubters by producing what could be a season-defining performance against Premier League champions Manchester City on Sunday.
Second-placed Southampton head into the game at St Mary's Stadium two points ahead of City after an impressive start to the campaign, but question marks remain over their staying power in the race for Champions League qualificaton.
Koeman has predicted that the next month will go a long way to deciding how his side will fare over the course of this campaign, with the Dutch coach urging his team to embrace the task of taking on Manuel Pellegrini's side this weekend.
"These are the best games you can play and we should enjoy the challenge," said Koeman. "Every person can have his own opinion about the team, but I think we have a good team with a good organisation. We have played against 12 teams now and I have not seen one team that is better than we are.
"We realise that this Sunday we play against a team that can win the title and that won the title last season. OK, we know we have to be good and play better than we did last Monday at Aston Villa, but we know it is hard to beat Southampton and we will show that this Sunday.
"If we like to do better than last season, then this period is important. We play nine games between now and the first of January and that is a difficult programme. We know if we like to do something special this season, then we have to win these kind of games.
"The challenge for us is to beat one of the big teams in the Premier League and having our own supporters behind our back will be important for us on Sunday."
Koeman was glowing in his praise of City striker Sergio Aguero, whose impressive personal season hit a new high as he fired a hat trick to help his side beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
"In the last few weeks, Aguero has been the difference between winning and not winning for City," he added. "They have good players, but Aguero makes the difference. He scored goals and created opportunities by himself.
"It is a nice challenge for our defenders to keep the zero behind for this Sunday. To stop City is a great challenge. Always the big teams have players who can win games with their performance."
Koeman went on to compare City's in-form striker to former Barcelona teammate Romario.
"The best player to compare to Aguero is I think Romario," he added of the former Brazil international. "I played with him and sometimes he looked like he was sleeping. Then in one split second, he was scoring.
"That is a big quality because that means a lot of concentration for defenders. He is always on the shoulder of the defenders, he always on the line of offside and that is difficult for defenders."
