RONALD Koeman sat in the same seat that Louis van Gaal had occupied four months earlier, and came to the same conclusions. The Burnley way will never be the Dutch way, but sometimes it works.

The rain was falling heavily when a sodden Koeman emerged from the darkness of the East Lancashire night to give his assessments of Southampton’s 1-0 defeat to the Clarets on Saturday.

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One of the greats of European football, a maestro who helped the Netherlands to their first major trophy and whose goal gave Barcelona their first European Cup, had been beaten at Turf Moor.

Burnley had an ‘unbelievable spirit’, Koeman acknowledged, while hinting that the home side’s style was somewhat contrasting with the Dutch total football philosophy on which he was reared.

“We like to build up, they play very direct,” said the Southampton boss. “It’s difficult to defend. It’s a different way of playing.”

Koeman’s former mentor turned foe, Van Gaal, had not been shy in volunteering similar opinions before and after Manchester United’s failure to secure victory at Turf Moor in August. Direct men do not always relish supposed direct football.

If it’s an Ajax thing though, nobody has told Marc Overmars. The current director of football for the Amsterdam club is keen to lure Burnley star Danny Ings across the North Sea in the summer, according to weekend reports.

Even if the ‘direct’ tag seems a touch unfair, Sean Dyche will probably care little - except to point out that his team’s ‘mixed football’, as he likes to call it, contains no shortage of attractive passing play.

The Clarets boss will also point to 11 points from six games, which have guided his side out of the relegation zone.

West Ham, Newcastle, Swansea, Arsenal, QPR, Sunderland, Stoke, Hull and Leicester have all fallen to Southampton this season. But not Burnley.

That the Saints’ defeat came via a penalty save was perhaps the most surprising thing, given that both club and taker Dusan Tadic had long histories of success from the spot. Even Koeman holds the La Liga record for 25 consecutive converted penalties.

But Tom Heaton’s save and Ashley Barnes’ winner brought to life a match that had threatened to be as much about the players who weren’t playing as the ones who were - with Jay Rodriguez and Sam Vokes still awaiting returns from injury, and the Japanese press arriving mob-handed to file exhaustive reports on Maya Yoshida, an unused substitute.

The Saints were a League One club managed by Alan Pardew the last time Burnley were in the Premier League.

Two other current top flight managers, Harry Redknapp and Nigel Pearson, had been unable to stop the Saints’ decline.

Both find themselves below Burnley right now - Pearson’s Leicester five points behind, despite his assessment in October that the Clarets weren’t as good as they were last season. It is a statement that looks more baffling with each passing week.

Total football, apparently it is not, according to Koeman and Van Gaal. But even they will admit that it is proving pretty effective right now.