Saints cruised past Crystal Palace with ease to end the day in 4th place in the Premier League, the only down side being they should have scored more.
The statistics show just how much Saints dominated this game against newly promoted Palace, 62% possession compared to 38% is an extremely high rate, the shots on target of 8 out of 12 isn't shabby either with the Eagles failing to muster one effort on target meaning a quiet afternoon for Artur Boruc, but for all that there one or two moments when Saints could have given it away, not least in the first half when Chamakh finding himself through on goal strangely chose to throw himself to the ground rather than slot the ball past the advancing Boruc, Saints had been caught cold but got away with it and made sure it didn't happen again.
The first half followed a familiar pattern to the previous games, Saints dominating but not really looking like scoring, a header from Schneiderlin being headed off the line being the only real decent effort on target we had apart from a Lambert effort.
But this changed in the first minutes of the second half, Saints have Nathaniel Clyne to thank for his tenacity in not giving up what looked like a lost cause after Saints conceded possession, he hounded the Palace players into giving it back and moments later Osvaldo opened his Saints account with a crisp finish for the first Saints Premier League goal from open play..
Moments later a Lambert free kick that ranks up there with his best thundered in off the post and Saints were firmly in the driving seat and heading into the top four if only for a day.
Disapointingly for all their possession though Saints couldn't add to their lead and the fact remains that we are still struggling to find goals from open play and find a fluidity in that play, Palace are not a good side and we should have made them pay far more than we did.
I still think that the formation of playing both Lambert & Osvaldo is hindering us rather than helping us, but if it makes both raise their game then it has to be a help, but the problem is on Saturday to accommodate them both it means that we have to sacrifice creativity in midfield and in that respect it was a surprise that Ramirez didn't play more of a part in the game, four minutes at the end not being enough to make an impact.
Dejan Lovren was perhaps a key figure again in that he is a commanding presence and he has certainly made Jose Fonte look a far better player for it, but star of the show was Osvaldo for his willingness to run and run and for his clinical finish .
But overall two straight wins have pushed us right up the table and in the past week we have turned what could have been a poor start into a great one, but we shouldn't sit on our laurels, we now need to do the same to Swansea next week and set ourselves up nicely for a trip to Old Trafford where we will look for our first League win there for 26 years when Colin Clarke scored both in a 2-0 win.
Saints are now settling in to a pattern where we don't concede many goals, we are tight at set pieces and don't get caught on the break as we did so often last season, the downside is that going forward we are not creating so many clear cut chances or at least we are not finishing off our chances as we should do, if we get this part of the game right then we could be looking at the top 10 finish that we allude to and perhaps more.