Southampton chairman Ralph Krueger has criticised clubs who regard playing in the Europa League as "a negative", but admits that it will be "tough" for the Premier League outfit to handle the tournament's demands.

Numerous clubs with relatively small squads tend to struggle to maintain form in their domestic league due to the Thursday night schedules in the second-tiered European competition.

However, Krueger has insisted that manager Ronald Koeman and the players will take the tournament seriously next season.

"Being in Europe will be tough, and you need to be much better organised, you need to be even more fit, you need to be a stronger unit, you need to manage all these things so much better, but that's why we're doing this," the Daily Echo quotes Krueger as saying.

"We're doing this to play football. We're an entertainment industry and we just earned more football games, so that's why we're here. So, any club out there that sees this as a negative, or as something that gets in the way of something else, is just not understanding what their business is."

Southampton will enter the tournament in the third qualifying round after they finished seventh in the top flight last season.