RALPH Hasenhuttl isn’t getting carried away with the prospect of finishing inside the top-10 next season.

The Austrian ensured Saints’ Premier League safety last weekend with a dramatic 3-3 draw against Bournemouth.

Despite an impressive second half of the season, Hasenhuttl’s main aim for next year’s campaign is to reach 40 points.

Hasenhuttl said: “I think every team below the top six wants to be the best of the rest, so every club has this target.

“You must be clear that to play such a season you need a perfect season.

“It is so tight, the quality from these clubs are so high that it’s not so easy to say next year we go into the first ten or seventh or eighth.

“I think if we make a few good signings in the summer and have a good start next season we are in an area of the table that feels easier to develop the guys because you don’t have that much pressure and then you don’t know what can happen.

“It is not our target to think that seventh is a good year and ten is a bad year. We are far away from this.

“Our first target is 40 points and if we reach them we can think about other targets.

“That is the best way for us to concentrate on the main thing and not a place in the table. That is not the goal I have at the moment.”

Saints travel to West Ham this Saturday, knowing that they can still finish as high as 12th in the table.

The east London side came out on top the last time the two sides met after Felipe Anderson struck a second half brace to cancel out Nathan Redmond’s opener.

And although there is a chance for Saints to climb the table, Hasenhuttl is certain that his team will end the year where they deserve.

“At the end of the season you get what you deserve, and we deserve to be 15th or 16th maybe but no more. For the whole year that was what we deserved,” added the Saints boss.

“Next year if you play better form the beginning and take consistently more points maybe you get better.

“I am a guy who doesn’t feel comfortable starting to be seventh or eighth.”