Chelsea's Oscar celebrates after scoring a goal against Queens Park Rangers during their English Premier League soccer match at Stamford Bridge in London November 1, 2014. [Photo/Agencies]

"I never scored a goal that," said Koeman, who did score some memorable goals in his stellar career, including a rasping 30-metre effort to win the 1992 European Cup for Barcelona.

"It was an incredible one, maybe it was the fault of the goalkeeper, but shooting from that distance with that precision, it was incredible."

Koeman's team have now made the best ever start by a Southampton side in the top flight after 10 matches, having two points more than their previous best performance at this stage in 1983-84.

RECENT REVIVAL

Newcastle United maintained their recent revival with their third straight league win, beating Liverpool 1-0 at St James' Park in the lunchtime kickoff with Spain Under-21 international Ayoze Perez scoring the winner 17 minutes from time.

That was enough to give Newcastle the points from a drab encounter and came after Perez pounced on some poor defending by Alberto Moreno, who failed to clear a loose ball in the box.

Perez also scored the winner when Newcastle won 2-1 at Tottenham Hotspur last week and his strike on Saturday, after coming on as a substitute at halftime, lifted Newcastle to 11th after they were in the relegation zone two weeks ago.

Although they failed to win, West Ham manager Sam Allardyce was pleased his team left the Britannia with a point after battling back from 2-0 down.

Victor Moses and Mame Biram Diouf put Stoke 2-0 ahead after 56 minutes before Enner Valencia (60th) and Stewart Downing (73rd) brought the Hammers back into the game.

"When you're 2-0 down away from home anywhere in the Premier League, getting anything is a terrific comeback," Allardyce said. "For us, that's what it had to be.

"It wasn't that we weren't trying, but we couldn't get our passing game going -- partly because of the conditions, and partly because Stoke were doing a good job on us."

In the other matches Everton drew 0-0 with Swansea City, who had Jonjo Shelvey sent off and West Bromwich Albion won 1-0 at Leicester City.