It wasn't pretty, it was all about hard work but ultimately it was a point gained rather than two lost as Saints held the Premier League leaders at St Mary's.
Saints have been used to dominating the stats this season, but on Saturday against Liverpool at St Mary's the trend was reversed as Liverpool poured forward for most of the game leaving Saints to try and attack on the break and set pieces.
Liverpool had 65% of the possession, had 15 shots to Saints 3, but crucially they only got 2 on target both of which Fraser Forster dealt with well and that perhaps tells the story of the game where the men in stripes had to dig in work hard and earn a point against the in form side in the Premier League at the moment.
There are perhaps those that will moan about the lack of chances created by Saints, indeed we only had one of note, that came early in the second half where Cedric Soares got down the line and put in a peach of a cross that Charlie Austin headed narrowly wide, but this was a game to look at the good points in the performance and accept that the visitors were rampant and that we earned a point was testament to how well we battled.
Yes we had slices of luck, Liverpool when they did get a sight of goal wasted at least three sitters, but sometimes you have to ride your luck, dig in and grind out a point and this was one of those games.
The truth was this was a Saints side missing key players and with several of those both on the pitch and on the bench not 100% fit, Cedric Soares for instance hasn't kicked a ball in anger in seven weeks through injury and like Soufiane Boufal, Shane Long and Jay Rodriguez is on the road to full match fitness and sharpness rather that in peak condition, none of these four let us down and neither did Ryan Bertrand and Pierre Emile Hojbjerg who were carrying knocks from the international break, even Fraser Forster in goal had been on the treatment table this week, that's over half of those who played not quite 100 %, there is no one questioning the spirit of the squad or it's commitment to Claude Puel after this game.
So overall this was certainly a point gained, yes it was disappointing that we didn't create more, but remember this was a Liverpool side at the top of their game, who had scored 10 goals in their last two league games and had gone to Arsenal and won, gone to Chelsea and won drawn at Spurs and only lost once all season.
Hard to pick a Saints man of the match, there was no one outstanding in that every man did his job and did it well.
Now Saints have a good base to build on going into an important week of fixtures, winning at Sparta Prague will put us on the cusp of winning the Europa League group, beating Everton will not only be satisfying but take us within a couple of points of them and then we go to Arsenal looking to win and go into the semi final draw.
This result is the foundation for that and we have an exciting week ahead, such are our standards these days tenth in the league is seen as a disaster, but the reality is that it is a good place to be given the issues we have had this season, three years ago this was the peak of our ambitions, now we are looking much higher.