Perhaps the most glorious victory since our return to the Premier League, wins away to the league leaders don't come very often for any team in the Premier League.
Mauricio Pochettino decided not to ring the changes for the trip to Anfield and keep an attacking line up, but the end result was the same as the last time the two clubs met and Liverpool suffered defeat for the first time since that March meeting at St Mary's.
This was very much a team effort and required every man to put in a shift, the pattern for the afternoon was set, a Saints attack broke down and Liverpool were quickly on the counter, but defensively with Dejan Lovren in the back four and two speedy full backs, not to mention Victor Wanyama, Saints are far better set up to deal with this than they where last season and the longer the game went on the more you felt that Saints could deal with everything thrown at them.
But lets not make the mistake of thinking this was a performance with Saints totally controlling the game, in the first half Saints were tight defensively, but going forward the lacked a little punch, often breaking in good positions but with the attack fizzling out, it also took Boruc at his best, especially from a Steven Gerrard free kick to keep the score level at the break, the Polish keeper also had to be alert on a number of occasions to command his penalty box to make sure that the danger was squashed before it had a chance to develop.
Overall Saints went into the break good value for their money and looking well set out to keep Liverpool frustrated.
But everything changed just after half time,, Saints seemed to have stepped up a gear, initially Liverpool looked in no danger, but a quick throw in from Saints caught them panicking at the back and they conceded a needless corner and this was to cost them dearly, Adam Lallana hit almost the perfect corner, just a little far for the keeper to come, but near enough in to mean that if an attacking player got his head on it, it would cause trouble, that man was Dejan Lovren who held off Agger and headed home to the delight of the travelling support behind the goal.
The question now would be whether Saints could hold out, the home side almost immediately made a change bringing on Enrique for Agger signalling their attacking intent, but Pochettino made a key change on 65 minutes, taking off Lambert and bringing on Steven Davis, Saints suddenly looked to have better shape not just on the back foot but going forward as well and almost immediately nearly doubled their lead with Mignolet having to make a triple save to keep the ball out.
Saints still had to be tight at the back though, Boruc marshalled his troops well and whenever Liverpool put a hopeful ball into the box, there was Boruc to deal with the danger, with 15 minutes to go Saints made another change with Ward Prowse replacing Lallana, this signalled Saints intent to hold what they had and not give anything away, as the game entered its final knockings came the final substitution Jack Cork to rapturous applause from Saints supporters who were determined to let him know that in their eyes at least he wasn't the forgotten man, he replaced Jay Rodriguez who had worked tirelessly all afternoon and was clearly on his last legs with the effort.
The final whistle sparked scenes of mayhem in the away section, as Liverpool fans trooped out dejectively matching the sorry departure of their players, the Saints team ran over to their fans, pushed away stewards who tried to stop them and threw their shirts to the crowd, a magnificent gesture to what had been magnificent supportfrom those who had put in a magnificent performance.
So with the emotions over lets take an overview of the game from a cold hard standpoint now the hangovers from the celebrations have died down, firstly it has to be said that this was a well drilled performance by Saints, although it perhaps does tell you something in that our man of the match would be a choice between Artur Boruc and Dejan Lovren, but apart from the wonder save from Gerrard in the case of the keeper, both were only doing what they were paid to do, defensively we looked good with a midfield that protected the back four well and made sure that Liverpool's midfield couldn't settle and start picking out Sturridge.
Going forward though we were often disjointed until the first substitution, too often attacks broke down because we had the wrong man on the ball in certain situations, ie Osvaldo having dropped deep playing Lambert through for a run at the defenders or Lambert crossing to the far post for Osvaldo, of course we have to make exceptions for the fact that we were playing the League leaders at their place with them having one of the tightest defences in the League, but we just didn't get in enough meaningful chances from open play and again our goal was scored from a dead ball situation with a central defender heading home, the dichotomy of the situation being that whilst we have one of the meanest defences in the Premier with only Spurs having conceded less and only Chelsea being able to equal us, attacking wise we have scored the joint least in the division, bottom of the pile Sunderland having exactly the same goals for total and two more of the bottom four having the same number.
There are of course a lot of positives from this performance, far more than negatives, but if we truly want to make that step up, then we have to sort out the goals for column, for those that say that Osvaldo and Lambert can play in the same team, its just not looking like working so far and I think its to the detriment of both men's game, if we sort this out then there is no reason why we shouldn't have a top ten finish, as was shown on Saturday we not only have a good starting line up, but we have the quality to come off the bench and that wasn't something we could always say last season.
ins at Anfield don't come along very often, in my lifetime there have been only 4, so when they happen they should be savoured.