Saints ace happy with City curtain-raiser

Rickie Lambert has described Southampton's Premier League opener away to champions Manchester City as 'brilliant'.

Lambert set the Championship alight last season with 27 league goals to pick up the Golden Boot and help fire the Saints back into the Premier League following a seven-year absence. And, while many would have been disappointed at seeing Nigel Adkins' side being handed an away game at the reigning Premier League winners on the opening weekend of the season in mid-August, Lambert is relishing the prospect of testing his abilities against Roberto Mancini's expensively-assembled side. "It's brilliant," he told the club's website. "My cousin asked me who I thought we'd get and I said to him I bet you any money it will be City! The only thing I got wrong is that I thought it would be at our place, but either way I was hoping for it and we got it as well so I'm absolutely chuffed. "There's all kinds of sayings like it's better to get them early and just after the Euros, and who knows what kind of mind-frame they're going to be in, but all that matters is what kind of mind-frame we're going to be in. "I think if we're in the same mind-frame as we were and the same shape that we started with last season then they'll find it very hard to beat us - I'm sure about that."