In many respects it was business as usual for Saints in terms of possession and chances, however there was one difference from recent weeks and that was Artur Boruc.
Saints earned only their second win in ten matches and their first Premier League home win in over two months as they won a hard fought game against a West Brom side who arrived at St Mary's determined to put on a well organised performance for their new manager watching from the stands.
Big news was that Artur Boruc was back in goal and for those who were slagging off Boruc just before his enforced hand injury, if ever they needed a reminder of how important he is to this Saints team it has been the previous 7 1/2 League games he has been missing and this game in which he made sure that Saints kept all three points in the dying minutes and didnt throw the game away.
In front of Boruc though not much was different in terms of how Saints played and how they lined up, once again it was a tale of high possession with 62%, a lot of shots - 18 and few really testing the keeper with only 5 actually on target, the Baggies had dodne their homework and were quite content to sit back, watch Saints knock it about on the half way line, but rarely threaten.
In the first half it was quite clear that one thing Saints lack is directness and this is why we are not scoring goals, we seem to prefer to try and make 5 passes when in some situations 1 would do if it is incisive, this was hit home to me in the first half when we earned a corner in the Kingsland/Northam side of the ground, with all the big guns up from the back we took it short and West Brom had read it and gave away another corner, with the Baggies now completely aware of what we might do, the natural thing would have been to take the corner and put it in the box, but we didnt do this we tried to go short again and were blocked out and the ball was passed back into our own half.
I admire our passing game but when you take into account that such a large proportion of our goals have come from dead ball situations with the ball crossed into the box, why arent we taking advantage of the opportunity to do so in what is clearly a strong point for us, put bluntly too many times we look a pretty passing side, but we lack that final ball and cutting edge, in open play I can understand why we would knock it about and wait patiently for the opening, but not from dead balls. We only had four corners in this game, we wasted two of these in the space of 30 seconds.
On the hour Mauriccio Pochettino changed things, on came Ramirez, but why was it once again Jack Cork who came off, Cork is again forming a great partnership with Schneiderlin, taking him off didnt make sense in many way as it upset the balance in that Steven Davis had to drop deeper to let Ramirez hold the attacking role.
The change did pay dividends a few minutes later, the Uruaguyan showed what he can do when he has someone who can make runs to pass to, Adam Lallana did just that and finished with aplomb for what would be the only goal of the game.
There was one twist of the game to come though in the dying minutes as West Brom broke and found Shane Long unmarked on the edge of the six yard box, Boruc reacted superbly to show that despite long periods of inactivity his concentration and sharpness were still fully focused.
A good win for Saints in that it was needed for our own confidence and that it not only keeps us within sight of 8th place and the chance to battle with Newcastle for that position, but it keeps a big gap between us and tenth place, it ensures that now having hit the 30 point mark we can take the fear factor out of our game and concentrate on moving upwards without fear of getting dragged too close to the relegation battle for comfort.
There were some key areas in this game both positive and not so much so that need to be highlighted though if we are to move forward.
1. Boruc is crucial to our defending, its not just about shotstopping, its about organising the defence and making it confident enough to do its job without worrying what the keeper is doing, yes Boruc made a vital stop at the end, but his influence goes far deeper than the odd good save, although he does make some great saves its all about his presence.
2. We need to be more direct at times, especially dead ball situations, as I mentioned a very large chunk of our goals come from dead ball situations so when we get them we have to utilise them, on Saturday we didnt get than many but we tried to be too clever when we did.
3. Now we can truly get that monkey of relegation off our back its time to try and fine tune our system, given as above that we need to be direct can we fit Ramirez into our way of playing, if we do that then he needs someone who can make the runs.
4.Substitutions, against the Baggies they were baffling in many respects, as was the make up of the bench, obviously there might be injuries that I dont know about, but why have two centre halves on the bench and leave out Chambers who has not only been one of our better players in recent weeks but offered far more options in terms of what he can do.
As many will know Im not one of those that spits feathers at the mere mention of Guly's name, but I am very concerned about why he was brought on and who he replaced, at a time when we were on the back foot with West brom finally throwing everything forward we bought on Guly in midfield and with respect firstly he is not a defensive player and secondly he hasnt played since October so wont be sharp, also Rickie Lambert was dead on his feet and we needed legs in these final couple of minutes, if we were going to bring Guly on, far better to take off Rickie and push Guly up front or for that matter Sam Gallagher up front.
5. The squad has been hit by injury but the real problem has been how we have used it we have gone from a point where we only ever used 12-13 players and no one else got a look in to there being some sort of rotation in certain positions with players coming in one week, out the next and in the case of Guly suddenly thrown in from knowhere.
The squad is good enough to see us through the season we just need to use it better, I worry that when Wanyama returns that would be the end of Jack Cork, he seems to be substituted in every game despite usually being one of our better players, the inference from the manager seems to be clear, dont get too used to him, he almost seems to be trying to avoid a situation that when Wanyama returns that he cant drop Cork. for him and has to make a decision.
A lot of positives from this game and we now have the chance to move forward and start to build for next season, the League situation is that at best we are playing for 8th and if we can keep winning the odd game here and their then at worst we are playing for 10th, now is the time to be proactive and start building for next season, perhaps not in terms of spending in the transfer window, but in finding out of the likes of Ramirez and Osvaldo can use their obvious talents in our system, now this wont please fans of Rickie Lambert but assuming that neither are sold in January, we need to find out if they are the future of the club in the long term.