Ahead of kick off you would have been hard pushed to find anyone who thought that Saints would get anything out of this game, at best most hoped for a valiant performance and a narrow(ish) defeat, how wrong would everyone be !
It was a sombre walk up to St Mary's and a quiet one, it was apparent that a large proportion of the Saints supporter base had not bothered for this one, I knew plenty of season ticket holders and regular away supporters who gave this one a miss, also there were plenty of tickets for sale on social media, again a lot of people had bought tickets but for one reason or another could not face going.
That meant that the demographic of the crowd was much changed from a normal League game, of the 22,996 attendance there were a lot more people who were either casual Saints supporters or even neutrals come to see Manchester City's superstars perform their repertoire.
This meant that the atmosphere in the ground was a lot less hostile than it has been of late, it was only the die hards left from a normal Premier League crowd and they seemed to be more willing to give Nathan Jones a chance than those who had stayed at home.
City didn't put out their full first choice team Haaland & De Bruyne amongst the substitutes, but then again nor did Saints, in came the likes of Ibrahima Diallo, Sekou Mara & Moussa Djenepo for rare starts.
The game soon settled into a familiar pattern, both for games against City and indeed most games of late, the visitors had plenty of possession, but you could sense that there was a spirit missing in the Saints team that has been missing for a while, whatever the reason the players now seemed to be fully bought into the system and knew what they were doing.
City as mentioned had the possession and had the tricks, but Saints were digging in and fighting for every ball and for that matter for themselves individually and as a team and the first chance of the game fell to them when Caleta-Car had a scuffed shot saved on 7 minutes.
As the game hit 20th minute I don't think many believed we would win this game, but they were hopeful that the clock was ticking down and reducing the chance of a heavy defeat.
But then on 23 minutes came something that wasn't in the script, Lyanco stormed down the wing, put in a peach of a cross and there was Sekou Mara to nip in front of the defender to sweep the ball home.
Suddenly the crowd were on their feet, but still most felt that this would just annoy City and make them up their game.
But 5 minutes later came the unthinkable, Saints doubled their lead, Djenepo got the ball took a few strides forward and then spotting the keeper off his line, hit a sublime chipped shot that curled over the head of the keeper and sent St Mary's wild.
Those that said there was an element of luck about our two goals at Palace on Saturday could not claim this on either of these two strikes, they were quality finishes and bode well for the rest of the season.
Suddenly Saints had a decent lead to defend, but there was still a long long way to go.
The game was a familiar pattern still, but there was an unfamiliar resilience about the Saints side, they were working as a team and every player was doing his job, this wasn't going to be pretty, but it was pleasing to watch, the fringe players stepped up to the plate, two great finishes from Mara & Djenepo and Diallo battled and fought for every ball.
When we lost the ball we worked hard to get it back, it was never about what we had just done, always about what we did next and that was fight for every ball and never give up, any drop in this intensity would let City back in the game.
At half time City made three changes, Kevin De Bruyne one of them, showing that Pep Guardiola was worried, 10 minutes after the break Haaland came on, Guardiola was really worried now.
Saints fans were worried when in the space of 5 minutes Saints had to make two enforced changes when firstly Djenepo and then Lavia came off around the hour mark, this was a blow, especially Lavia who was looking a class act against his former club, just after Adams came on for Mara to offer fresh legs up front.
City saw hope and shortly after on came Rhoddri, now City had almost a full first choice side out there and there was almost 30 minutes plus injury time to go, but still Saints stuck at it.
The good news though was that City for all their possession rarely looked like scoring, just about their only chance on target despite 72% possession, was a scuffed effort that Gavin Bazunu fell onto easily, so poor was the effort it was not even recorded in the stats.
But although the worry that City would pull a goal back and make it a nervy ending, it never happened, when Saints brought on new signing Orsic on 83 minutes the City players looked like they had accepted their fate, when the final whistle on 6 minutes of injury time went, City had never looked like pulling the deficit back and suddenly Saints are back in business.
It is hard to name a man of the match in this one, it was very much a team effort, it was about every player doing his job, not one man could afford to drop off his effort levels or sit back and watch the game, it was about working for yourself and for your team mates, plenty of impressive performances and many candidates.
So what can we gleam from this game, firstly that we do have a squad that is good enough to survive in the Premier League, add Orsic and newly announced signing before the game of Carlos Alcaras and we have strengthened.
But more importantly we have won a game and won well against top class opposition, we have done so with a team spirit that suggests that Nathan Jones could pull things around.
There is still a long way to go and obviously Saturday at Everton will be crucial, buy you don't beat City, a team that have won this competition 6 times out of the last 9 seasons , if you don't have a decent squad and for that matter a manager leading them who has some nous.
Nathan Jones has had a lot of flak, but he has shown in this game that he might have learned a few things from our defeats, he might have started to earn the respect of his players and he does at least deserve the chance to show that after an unimpressive start to his time at St Mary's he can recover from that and take us forward.