Saints huffed and they puffed but they could not blow the West Ham United house down to send Fat Sam home a very Happy Hammer.
The statistics probably said a lot about the way West ham set about this game, 67% possession to Saints, 21 shots compared to West Ham's 7, but the problem was that only 7 were on target with the Hammers managing just 1 solitary effort on target themselves.
Sam Allardyce had clearly done his homework and his game plan was simple, play deep so that his defence could not be exposed to the pace of Elia and Mane, once his team went down to 10 men that resolve was strengthened and with Andy Carroll a virtual passenger in the final 15 minutes due to injury.
This is the price that Saints have to pay for the success this season, teams arrive at St Mary's with the main objective being not to let us score and then to try and catch us on the break.
Saints didn't play badly they just could not break down the visitors resolve and that has to be a problem that Ronald Koeman has to sort out quickly, the return of Shane Long will help matters as will Jay Rodriguez if we can get him fit, but in the meantime we perhaps have to adjust our style of play a little when we play at home.
Some fans around me felt that Graziano Pelle is not in form, that is not the full story, now Pelle is being used in a different way, now he is more about the link up play than being the man on the end of it.
When he was prolific in the early part of the season he was used as a more out and out attacker, our game was more about getting down the wing and putting it across for Pelle to get on the end of and he did that well.
Now Pelle's role in our attacks is around 20 yards deeper than before, his role is to win the ball and knock it down to the central midfield who will in turn bring the likes of Elia, Mane and even Clyne and bertrand into play, this works well away from home with a good example being the first goal at Newcastle, but at home when we have more of the ball perhaps we need to push Pelle further up as he is needed less to win the ball.
But all things aside we need to put this down as a bad day at the office, it was another point and that keeps us in fourth place, the season is still very much in our own hands and we have come through a difficult spell with a good tally of points, with players coming back from injury we will only get stronger.