Southampton striker Jay Rodriguez is not looking to rush himself to full fitness from his serious knee injury.

26-year-old Rodriguez has shown a wonderful run of form in pre-season for Southampton since his return from injury, scoring 5 goals in 6 appearances.

Despite his exploits though, manager Ronald Koeman does not feel that Rodriguez has returned to peak fitness levels after leaving him out of the Europa League squad against Vitesse last week and the striker also accepts that he needs to take it slow before returning to 100%.

"I obviously want to be involved in every game and every training session that I can but I've just got to take my time and just concentrate on what I can affect," he told the club's official website.

"We've got great players in the squad and everyone's fighting for their place. There's really healthy competition because everyone's a great lad and we all get on, which is good.

"I've got to make sure that I can affect a game as much as possible, and the main thing for me is to keep improving as a player. I just want to keep learning and working hard, so I've got to make sure I'm mentally ready for that.

"I feel like I'm getting close [to full fitness]. Obviously it's going to take time and I want to be sharper and quicker with my speed of thought. The more games and the more training sessions that go by, I will try to keep improving myself and hopefully I can."