It was a win and to be blunt that was all that mattered.
Alan Pardew shuffled his pack for the visit of Yeovil, bringing in Jaidi and moving Lloyd James out wide to give Scheiderlin the chance to try and create in the middle and whilst the logic behind the choices were clear, they didnt quite work.
Yeovil looked a side who belied their lowly position, well drilled and organised they laid out two solid lines in front of Saints and invited them on, but throughout the 90 minutes Saints never seemed able to break them down.
Scheiderlin couldnt find the room for the through balls and there was a distinct lack of width with neither James nor Lallana able to get down the line and get crosses in.
Having said this Saints remained tight and patient.
The first penalty was almost comical, Marek Saganowski is lucky that this game wasnt covered by more than the solitary camera otherwise he would surely be facing a charge of diving, with the linesman on the far side, just about the only person in the house that thought it was a foul was the ref, but in our position we cant look gift horses in the mouth and Lambert duly converted.
If Saints thought that this would be the signal for Yeovil to collapse they were wrong, and although they enjoyed much of the ball, they could never seem to do too much with it that threatened the visitors goal.
The second half was much like the first, yet another dodgy penalty decision, this time given by the linesman, who spotted that the ball had brushed a defenders hand, again the only man in the house that thought it was a penalty and again Lambert obliged.
To be honest if either spot kick had been given against Saints we would have been up in arms.
As the game went on Yeovil looked more threatening on the break, but in truth Saints coped easily and Pardew made a double substitution on 71 with the pace of Mills and Waigo opening the game out for Saints a little, they even had a chance when a free kick was met at close range, however the Yeovil keeper somehow kept it out and prevented a scoreline that would have been unjust.
But despite the nature of the result, this was a game that hopefully will change Saints season, they needed to break their duck and convince both themselves and the fans that they can win games, yes we would have liked to have won it in style and not had to rely upon a couple of dodgy decisions, but in truth we did deserve the three points for our overall play.
Its also two big steps of the season taken, firstly it is of course our first win, but secondly and just as psycologically important, although we are still bottom due to the points deduction, we would be comfortably out of the bottom three on merit had we not had those 10 points taken off, whilst a win at Carlisle would still leave us bottom, it would of course put us into plus territory points wise and put us within sight of getting out of the bottom 4.