With Southampton ahead of the more fancied sides in the Premier League, the Portugal international hopes that expectation will work in his side’s

Southampton captain Jose Fonte says that the pressure is all on his side’s rivals as they push for a Champions League place.

Ronald Koeman’s Saints sit third in the Premier League table after 24 matches thanks to Saturday’s late 1-0 win at QPR.

Only six points separate Southampton, on 45, and sixth-placed Liverpool, with Manchester United, Tottenham and Arsenal Tin between them and Fonte expects those behind them to struggle with the expectation.

“Those teams have all the pressure in the world,” he told reporters.

“For us, no-one really believes in us, no-one really thinks that we’re going to get there but we as players and the group believe in ourselves and we’re going to be fighting for that.

“It’s going to be like this until the end, I think. As we said before the game, we just need to keep going game by game, keep digging, grinding the results out and we’ll see in the end where that takes us.”

Southampton are in action on Wednesday, as they host West Ham to St Mary’s.