This was just about the best Saints performance of the season, it was an all round team effort with the only disappointment for the St Mary's faithful that we didn't finish our chances and make this the comprehensive victory the scoreline should have been.
Before we start we should consider that Cardiff City harbour their own ambitions of reaching the play offs, they started the game with hopes of being in the top six should they win and indeed if that had, then they would sit in 6th place today on goal difference.
They are no push overs and this was a real test of Saints ability to show their promotion credentials.
The team news was simple, Che Adams was in for the injured Sulemana.
Saints were up for it from the kick off, you could see with their fluid passing that they were full of confidence after 10 games without defeat and it reaped it's reward after 11 minutes when Charley Alcatraz slipped the ball to Adam Armstrong on the edge of the box and the striker curled in a sublime shot to the top right hand corner to give the home side the lead.
That was doubled 4 minutes later when Stuart Armstrong went on a nice little run and got to the byeline and crossed, his attempt took a deflection and looped up and there was his namesake to head home from close range for his second of the game.
Now Saints had something of a rarity this season, a 2 goal lead and this gave them the confidence to start to play the possession game without fear, Cardiff did have their moments just before half time, but in the ,main Saints looked full of confidence and more likely to get a third than concede.
The second half looked to have started well as Adam Armstrong crossed for Che Adams who smashed the ball home from the edge of the area, but he was just off side.
From then on it was all Southampton FC, perhaps not by far the greatest team the World will ever see, but it was still a great team performance as we swept forward time after time.
We really should have hit a third and we certainly had the chances, Ryan Fraser after coming on just after the hour mark seemed to have the lions share, but just couldn't get one in the net, Joe Aribo also hit a post.
This would have been a great opportunity to sort out our goal difference a bit, but it was not to be.
Adam Armstrong got the man of the match and there weren't many in the ground who would have disagreed with that, the two goals aside he was at the heart of everything and also had at least two good chances to notch his hat trick saved by the keeper.
But running him a close second was Ryan Manning, he had his best game for the club, indeed perhaps the best performance in that position by anyone so far, his contribution in the build up to the opening goal gave him the confidence, but he looked good going forward and perhaps more pleasingly his defensive work was good.
But of these two deserve a special mention, the rest of the team more than played their part, as mentioned the possession game was fluid and we moved the ball accurately and quickly, it was a joy to watch.
When fresh legs were needed we had proven quality to bring on in Ryan Fraser, but Russell Martin left the youth on the bench, he had Edozie, Amo - Ameyaw, and Tyler Dibling on the bench, but opted for Sekou Mara and Joe Aribo as his only other subs,
Again they slotted into the side well, Aribo was big and strong replacing Stuart Armstrong and Mara worked hard in the last 10 minutes to make sure that Cardiff couldn't build from the back.
It was a true team effort from the goalkeeper who on a cold day had little to do, but when called upon stood strong and when passing out of the box always made himself available to get the ball back if needed, through to the front line and all of the subs, it would be churlish for anyone to suggest that any of the 14 who played had an off day.
Sadly though we did not make up any ground on the 3 teams above us, we were seconds away from Leicester dropping another two points, but that did have a silver lining in that it meant that we are now 5 points clear of West Brom in 5th place and 9 points clear of Blackburn who are in 7th place.
Our unbeaten run has slowly but surely put us in a strong position in terms of qualifying for the play offs, now the job is to hunt down the 3 clubs above us.
The games will now come thick and fast up to 1st January when we start 2024 away at Norwich City, those leaving St Mary's at 5pm on Saturday were a lot more confident than they would have been a month ago, slowly but surely we have been getting stronger both physically and mentally and Russell Martin has built a good squad that can cope with injuries and suspensions and perhaps just as importantly playing games in quick succession.
This last week started with the disappointment of dropping two points at Huddersfield, but a week later we have come back stronger and not only achieved the first objective of putting daylight between us and 7th place, but in making Leicester, Ipswich & Leeds realise that we are coming up fast.