Saints registered their biggest victory at St Mary's since November 2017 as they emphatically defeated Brentford to surge up the table into 11th place in front of the new owners of the club.
Saints fans have had to wait a long time to see their team hit four goals at St Mary's again, the last occasion being on 26th November 2017 when Everton were the visitors, when goals from Dusan Tadic, followed by a brace from Charlie Austin and a late goal from Steven Davis gave us a 4-1 victory over the Toffees.
Ralph Hasenhuttl had opted for a 3-5-2 formation utilising Romain Perraud & Nathan Tella as wing backs, the same formation employed by Brentford and it paid early dividends when Jan Bednarek scored his 3rd goal in the last 4 games to head home from a James Ward Prowse corner after only 5 minutes.
Saints were well in control of the game now and looked set to capitalise on a Brentford side that were offering little, but there was a shock on 23 minutes when Brentford broke quickly and crossed for Janelt to fire home from close range with the visitors first shot on target.
But those that though same old Saints and here we go again would be disappointed 8 minutes before the break when a fine shot from 25 yards by Ibrahima Diallo hit the post and came off the keepers glove for what was credited as an own goal.
Harsh not to give it to Diallo, a few years back it would have been, but now with VAR these type of shots get analysed and given as own goals.
So a slender lead at the break that didn't really reflect Saints dominance and there was still an air of apprehension in the concourses at half time, we had seen this before and we are the league leaders at dropping points from a leading position.
But within 4 minutes of the restart the game was stretched again when Saints won the ball on the edge of their penalty area, found Romeu quickly, who played a perfectly weighted path for Armando Broja to run from his own half and slot past the keeper.
This was surely enough to see off Brentford and they continued to offer little going forward, the games was but to bed in the 70th minute when Saints cleared a corner and Che Adams was through on goal, it looked offside to the naked eye in the stadium, but he lofted the ball over the keeper, the flag stayed down and VAR didn't rule it out and Saints were 4-1 up at home for the first time in over 4 years.
All that was needed now was Stuart Armstrong to come off the bench as the lucky talisman and that he did immediately after the goal.
Ironically though going so far behind stirred Brentford into life and suddenly they threw themselves forward with nothing to lose and they enjoyed their best spell of the game, Fraser Forster was called into action on several occasions and had to make some decent stops to ensure the visitors didn't get a foothold back in the game.
New owners Dragan Solak & Henrik Kraft watching from the directors box must have been pleased by the performance of their new club, as must Rasmus Ankersen who until 3 weeks ago was at Brentford and is now as CEO of Sport Republic the man overseeing the operation, he worked with Ralph Hasenhuttl ahead of the game on the way Brentford play and that must have helped.
It was very much a team effort and very satisfying given the players we had out such as Tino Livramento & Kyle Walker Peters, not to mention the key players who weren't even in the starting line up such as Stuart & Adam Armstrong and Che Adams.
There is competition for places now at St Mary's in all positions and we showed we can handle not having a recognised right back available not just by employing a stand in but by altering our formation and that must be good going forward.
Likewise the performance of Fraser Forster who looked like he was back to something resembling his old self of 2014-17, he looked confident and not only commanded the box and made some great saves after not being called into action for long periods, but was positive in coming out of his box and clearing, the defence looked a lot happier with him behind them.
Although there were several candidates for man of the match, the stand out player for me was James Ward Prowse, not just for his pin point balls such as the corner for the first goal, but the way he bossed the midfield, he showed he can do the simple things well, win the ball and lay it off simply, even a last gasp tackle when it looked like Brentford would pull a gaol back late on, his performance reminded me a lot of Steven Davis in his prime, JWP can definitely do the spectacular but again he showed he can also roll up his sleeves and graft when needed.
Hopefully this marks the beginning of a new era at St Mary's, it will be evolution not revolution, as the owners have said, in essence nothing much changes, they bought Saints because it already fitted the model they wanted for a football club, but it does perhaps loosen the purse strings and that has to be a help.
I have said all season this is a good squad, a stronger squad than we have had in a while all round, some disagreed, but this result showed that we are moving in the right direction, yes Ralph Hasenhuttl has made mistakes, but show me a Premier League manager who hasn't !
For the past 3 years he has had to run things on a shoestring, little money for transfers and the club having to pay out for players signed on big wages who were out on loan, so making the job even harder.
Now that these things are changing we will hopefully see Ralph show just why we gave him the job, certainly there was a new atmosphere in the ground last night and fair play to the fans who have been going to St Mary's this season, they have backed the team all the way and this game was no exception not only very loud vocal support from the Northam & Itchen North, but a buzz in the other areas, there will be trouble along the way, there always is, we won't win the League but we can now compete.
We now sit in 11th only 10 points behind West Ham in 5th, that is probably a gap that we won't be able to overcome, but we know that in the first half of the season we did not perform to our abilities, in truth we could easily have been within 4-5 points off that 5th place, of course that is all if's & but's, however if we have a better second half of the season than we did the first, then a top 10 place is within our grasp.
One result doesn't lead me to say this, it is having watched all the games this season, seeing our weaknesses and seeing our strengths, I have seen both improving as the season has gone on, there is now starting to be light at the end of the tunnel, this result allows us to start looking up the table and not back down over our shoulders.