The best performance of the season took Saints out of the bottom three and gives hope that we can surge upwards in the New Year and make the second half of the season a lot better than the first.

Saints pulled themselves out of the bottom three with their best performance of the season and hauled the teams above them back into view, I said several months ago that we are a good team but with a poor defence and that some days we would get away with it and on others not, that we need to turn around at the New Year with our heads above water and then we can bring in a new face or two in January and stay up.

That is looking more likely as Saints won 3-1 to go three points clear of Aston Villa who dropped into the relegation zone and we now need to pick up a point or two in the next couple of fixtures to head into the second half of the season with more confidence.

Ironically this was very similar to the same weekend last year where we beat Huddersfield away by the same score, it should be noted that from 18 games last year we only had 15 points, so those who claim this is the worst season ever are not quite correct.

This was always going to be a nervous game, but it was Saints who showed the spirit and after an early scare that saw Alex McCarthy make a smart save in a brief spell of panic, they took control and never looked back.

Several players who have not been in the best of form showed courage and made major contributions, not least Jack Stephens who had perhaps his best game in a Saints shirt and scored the second goal, he did have a little waver near the end but overall he stood strong.

Nathan Redmond and Ryan Bertrand were a constant threat down the left and Redmond especially looked like he was finding his form again with a sublime through ball for Shane Long who saw his subsequent shot saved only fro the rebound to be tapped in by Danny Ings for the opener.

But this was very much a team performance, not one player put in a performance that was less than 100% in spirit, fight and bottle, Pierre Emile Hojbjerg did not have a great game, but he battled as much as the next man and therefore played his part.

But it was Danny Ings who took the plaudits, not just for his two goals the second of which was a real poachers goal, but for his work rate in creating chances and making space for others.

This being Saints though we can't keep a clean sheet and although no one can doubt the class of Grealish's goal a strike worthy of Matt Le Tissier, the fact was we left him unmarked on the edge of the box and we have to get better organised as this is unacceptable in Sunday football let alone the Premier League.

Saints seem to play better away from home than they do at St Mary's and that could be because there is a fear factor at the moment in front of the home crowd and that too has to change, the Saints supporters at Villa Park were superb as they have been on the road all season, replicate that at home and we will have a better chance of staying up.

Indeed as I have mentioned before, in the three away games before this one we have conceded three late goals all individual errors that have cost us four points, take a look at the table and we can see that we are not far away from being a decent side, those four points alonside the points dropped by both Arsenal and Newcastle would have seen us level with Arsenal in 11th and only a point behind 9th place.

But the main job was done and that was three points that hauled us out of the bottom three, again I reiterate we are not a bad side and if we rectify the problems in January then we can still have a good season.

There is now light at the end of the tunnel, we will have setbacks, but we need to take them in our stride and not see every one of them as a disaster, there are still things not quite right at the club, but if we can put things right on the field that is a start, I support Saints because it is my club and my City, I have never been in any illusions about what we can and cannot achieve.

If Gao is not the sugar daddy some hoped that does not make him a bad owner, it just makes him an average one and no different from the Liebherr's in that respect, football is a fickle game and Everton have showed us all that spending money does not guarantee success.

So Saints have given us a Happy Christmas for the second year running, we have a better team than a year ago and we can build on that, the good times are made all the better when you have ridden the bad ones.

Photo: Action Images

davidargyll added 20:24 - Dec 22 lemmsy, I've watched the Villa goal several times and it may or may not have taken a deflection; one thing is for sure it had one helluva curl on it so maybe I was being quite charitable towards McCarthy...
3

schatfield added 20:29 - Dec 22 We won cos we weren't playing at home and in front of our God awful home fans
2

SanMarco added 21:15 - Dec 22 Have we perhaps finally got the knack of winning 'must-wins'? That's three in recent weeks. Now let's get at least 4 pts from these next three and then the New Year really will be happy. Happy Christmas to all the TUI crowd and Saints fans everywhere!
4

underweststand added 22:08 - Dec 22 to lemmsy.....I must admit I thought the same (as David Argyll) at the time . I've watched replays of that goal and looking at the camera angle from behind Grealish.. the ball appears to strike PEH (standing in the wall) ..on the upper arm or shoulder,as he moves to his left and that slightly defects the ball's trajectory goalwards. It was a nice goal, and fortunately it was purely academic to the result, but it's tough to blame McCarthy for every goal we concede.

2

landsdownsaint added 04:25 - Dec 23 Seems to me that RH still doesn’t know who to pick ... Armstrong was that bit of quality we’ve been missing , how the hell cant RH see that ?
3

wibbersda added 10:25 - Dec 23 After the Villa goal went in we began to revert to type. Nervy and inviting pressure. It was only that Villa didn't push on that it did not show as much. Good result but still fragile mentally.
2

Blogs 31 bloggers

Stoke City Polls