SOUTHAMPTON boss Alan Pardew says defender Danny Seaborne is a credit to Exeter City's development of young players.

The centre-back swapped the Grecians for the Saints in a £275,000 deal last month and will return to St James's Park for the first time when the two sides face each other in Coca-Cola League One this afternoon.

Since arriving at St Mary's, Seaborne has wasted little time in impressing his new manager Alan Pardew.

And the former West Ham United chief is hopeful Seaborne will continue to improve now he is at Southampton.

Pardew said: "I think Danny has been excellent since he has been here.

"He has had a great attitude to the training ground and that is a good marker for what is going on at Exeter. They obviously have a good work ethic down there, are producing good players and are trying to do it in the right way, so I applaud the staff for that.

"Fortunately he's our player now and we hope to take him forward."

Southampton started their League One campaign on minus 10 points, having fallen into administration at the end of last season shortly before they were relegated from the Championship.

However this term Pardew's men have shown they have not allowed that double blow to get them down.

Having clambered out of the relegation zone, the South Coast outfit are now comfortably in mid-table and their recent good form means many people are tipping them to reach the play-offs.

Yet, having seen City's superb performance in their 2-0 win over Leeds United last month, Pardew has warned his players they will have to work hard if they want to keep their promotion bid on track at St James's Park this afternoon.

Pardew said: "Exeter were absolutely brilliant that day (against Leeds.) They won well and deserved to win by more so if we think we have a lovely trip down the coast to Exeter to get us some preparation for the games against MK Dons and Portsmouth, then we are completely wrong.

"It's a noisy little stadium and we need to produce a performance that takes us into Tuesday."