Wolves arrived at Saints a struggling side and left with their 3rd successive Premier League victory at St Mary's in a game where they attacked just five times, but unlike the home side they managed to convert one of those chances.
The only surprise when looking at the stats is that Saints only had 57 % possession, it seemed like far more and highlighted how little appetite for getting forward the visitors actually had.
They spent much of the game timewasting and their game plan was simple don't concede a goal and hope they nick one at the other end,
This happened in the 61st minute and from then on they barely left their half again until the final seconds of injury time when they caught Saints on the break but Alex McCarthy saved well.
Alex McCarthy was called into action just three times, a good early save, the 61st minute goal that should have been prevented although Raul Jiminez took his goal well and that 95thm minute effort.
For the rest of the game it was all Saints pouring forward, but in the main failing to cash in and turn chances into goals. 18 attempts but only 6 on target tells you the story of the game.
If Saints had got the first goal then the game would have been far different, Wolves would have had to abandon their game plan and open up, but they didn't and the final half hour was a display of faking injury and timewasting that was purely embarrassing, just as shameful was that referee Andy Madley allowed them to get away with it and failed to show a yellow card even once.
But the timewasting wasn't the reason we lost, it came down to a lack of good chances up front and a failure to finish when we had the chance, we moved the ball well but couldn't in the main generate a decent chance.
I said in the preview we need to get one on one more often, but we failed to do that.
This was always going to be a tough game, in truth we don't like playing against sides who sit back and invite us on, we are better set up to be able to hold our own back line and then break with pace.
When we made the first change on 64 minutes I thought we took the wrong wide man off, many will disagree but Nathan Redmond looked far more likely to both create and score than Moi Elyounoussi, Redmond has some end product, perhaps he might be better suited as an impact player, but at least in most games he get a chance himself and makes them for others.
Bringing on Broja for Adams was a straight swap on 64 minutes and made sense for 10 minutes, I can see why Long came on for Walker Peters for the last 16 minutes, but if we were going to do that surely better to have left Adams on the pitch in the first place.
This was a disappointing defeat, one that now leaves us staring over our shoulders especially as the next game is at Chelsea, but it isn't a terminal blow, we can look at the game and take some plus's from it, yes there was a lack of imagination going forward, but we weren't outplayed we controlled the game and just got caught out the once.
We seem to have solved the issues we had at the back last season, but at the expense of scoring goals, we need something different at times, getting Stuart Armstrong back will be a big boost, he can drive at sides and score, too often on Sunday we got down the byeline well and crossed, but this was bread and butter for a Wolves side with 9 men in its own penalty area, this was a game where we had to drive at the heart of the defence and we didn't.
But there are 32 games still left, we lost this one we just need to get that first win and get up and running.