The fans returned to the stadium and the team showed that they can win in front of them, showing how much improvement has been made since the turnstiles last clicked at St Mary's back in March.
This game had banana skin written all over it, surely Sheffield United could not fall to yet another defeat, after all in the final game of last season just a few months ago they had taken a half time lead and looked good to finish the season with a flourish.
But from the start it was clear that since that game, one side had grown in stature and confidence and another was a shadow of it's former self.
The game took a familiar pattern for both sides, the Blades got everyone behind the ball and tried to go on the break and we passed and passed and looked for an opening.
The truth is that this was as one sided a match with Saints in control as we have seen for a long time, Sheffield United failed to register a single shot on target and Alex McCarthy's only real contribution was to offer his back four an option to pass too as they built up wave after wave of going forward.
Ironically it was a self inflicted injury that ended any slim hope of the visitors getting a goal, Ollie McBurney had put himself about a bit but when Kyle Walker Peters made a clean tackle he made a theatrical dive which damaged his own shoulder, he soldiered on but went off a minute after the break.
For all the pressure Saints struggled to get a shot on target in the first half early on, but nerves were settled when Che Adams took advantage of some kamikaze defending and goalkeeping to slot home.
The goal on 34 minutes settled the nerves and you felt that there was no way back for the Blades.
They came out and had a go in the second half and for the first 10 minutes we had to work hard to make sure they didn't do anything with the ball and they knew their luck was out when Stuart Armstrong's shot took a big deflection to double the lead on the hour mark.
Now it was just a question of would the Sheffield United team crumble or dig in, in fairness they kept going but we were sticking to our game plan and it was good to see that we didn't pile forward in droves, we kept our shape and made sure we didn't give them any opportunity to get a sniff of a comeback.
Nathan Redmond came on with 10 minutes to go and looked lively, within two minutes he scored and it was a well worked goal, Redmond looked fired up having not had much chance of game time lately due to injury and finding himself behind Theo Walcott in the pecking order.
It could have been more, Danny Ings just couldn't beat the keeper on a couple of occasions and late on when seemingly one on one tried to lay it across goal.
All in all a good team performance and great to see how we now have a discipline and a work ethic that has seen us rise from the bottom of the table after a couple of defeats in our opening two fixtures, to 3rd in the Premier League after 12 games although that could change and drop us to 4th after Leicester play later in the day.
If we want to challenge for the European places this is the type of game that we have to win, we have to make sure we don't slip up, beating the bottom sides is as important as beating the ones higher in the table.
Once again a great team performance, no one player could lay claim to man of the match, but all 11 plus the subs could say they had solid performances.
Satisfying win, we have set our standards now we have to continue to maintain them.