Saints marched on at Hull City courtesy of a 3rd minute Victor Wanyama strike in another game that shows Saints can dig in when they need to.
Saints could not have got off to a better start up on Humberside with Victor Wanyama this week being the beneifiary of a poor clearance from the goalkeeper and firing the ball back into the goal from all of 40 yards.
Although this would be the only goal of the game, the scoreline does not tell the full story, after being gifted the advantage, Saints had to dig in during a 20 minute spell in the middle of the first half and soak up Hull possession and pressure, this they did meaning that Fraser Forster did not have to make a save of note not only in this tough period but throughout the game.
We defend from the front under Ronald Koeman and the midfield puts in untiring work ably assisted by the back four, so much so that if watching England manager Roy Hodgson was hoping to learn something about Fraser Forster he would have been sadly disappointed, however he would have been pleased to have seen the form of Nathaniel Clyne and Ryan Bertrand, especially Clyne who really showed what poor judgement Hodgson had when he selected ex Saint Calum Chambers ahead of the Southampton man in the last Internationals.
Clyne epitomised the Saints way of playing and work ethic, digging and defending when neccessary, never giving up a lost cause and getting forward quickly to deliver accurate passing and telling balls, I could have used these words to describe just about every member of the Saints team and it is the reason why we have conceded less goals than anyone else in the League and half the number of the next best defence's in the premier Chelsea, Man City & Swansea.
After surviving the Hull bluster Saints had plenty of opportunities of their own and should have perhaps scored on several occasions, the only black mark on the game being that we failed to score a second and kill the match off when we really should have, Mane being the biggest culprit when he inexplicably managed to side foot the ball into the ground and the bounce took it over the bar from close range.
But in the main it was comfortable for Saints although at times it didn't feel like that and you had the sneaking suspicion that we might pay dearly for our misses, as we almost did at Stoke in midweek, but this time we did not take our eye of the ball and kept things tight and indeed we looked more likely to be the side who scored the next goal rather than Hull.
Ronald Koeman will be pleased with the performance, again it was build on the foundations of the magnificent 7 who have played every game so far, with Koeman tweaking it to suit the game, that meant Wanyama in the starting line up to add steel and that paid dividends with not only the grit and fight in the centre that you expect from the Kenyan but the winner as well.
The substitutions came at the right time as well, the pace of Mane for Shane Long who had worked tirelessly as usual and just didn't get the luck on a couple of occasions that would have seen his first Premier league goal for Saints,Mane's addition gave Hull something to think about in the final third of the game as they would have been thinking themselves of pushing on, they suddenly found that rather than making a defensive change, we made an offensive one with attack being the best form of defence.
Then with ten minutes left we took off Dusan Tadic and brought on the work rate of Jack Cork who added a little bit more of a defensive option than the excellent Tadic, but did create a chance or two himself in the closing stages as Saints made sure that Hull never got the chance to get up a head of steam.
Another great day of meltdown for Saints who with sides behind them dropping points are suddenly seeing a big gap opening between themselves and those teams that you would think would be the ones fighting for top six places.
Saints now need to keep winning over the next few games before a tough run, win the next two and we will be well set up for the visit of Man City as well as the game against Arsenal and United, like last year the last week of November is going to be key in where the season goes, this time I think we are stronger and better prepared to be able to take a few more points than we did last year in that period.
man of the match has to be Victor Wanyama, not just for the way he took the goal, not just for another tough tackling performance where his strength means we are rarely pushed off the ball in the centre, but also for the way he himself is developing as a player, he is a lot more controlled on the ball than he was last season and this is really benefitting in games such as this where we are now getting a little more than just brute strength from Victor. The competition for a place with Jack Cork seems to be spurring both of them on and is only good as results are showing.