A slow start for Saints under interim manager Simon Rusk, but they grew into the game and by the end, the team had restored some of the pride to both themselves and their fans as they made Liverpool fight right to the end.
It was a funny atmosphere at St Mary's on Wednesday evening, there were a lot of regular supporters missing from the crowd, which was clearly bolstered by the more casual Southampton fan as well as a few others.
But it did not dilute the atmosphere, the most empty seats in the stadium were in the supposed home end, the Northam stand, but that did not affect the vocal support from that end of the ground, as the game went on they grew louder and spurred the team on.
Indeed the atmosphere was far better than when there have been 5,000 more fans in the home seats than there were last night.
The line up saw very little change from Russell Martin's preferred line up of late, 3 central defenders with Bree & Manning as wing backs a solid 3-2-4-1 formation and there were no comebacks from any of the players ignored by Russell Martin over the past few months.
So in the team sheet Simon Rusk had not tried to be too clever, he kept things simple.
Liverpool put out a decent side albeit with a few youngsters in the line up and it was no surprise they dominated the opening stages, but it did look like things had changed on the pitch, although Saints still tried to keep the ball where possible, they were not playing to the degree they were under the previous manager.
But Saints being Saints, just as it looked like they were finding their feet in the game, they gave away a goal that perhaps could have been avoided, although it was a stroke of bad luck that gifted Nunez the chance, the initial through ball looked like it would go past Nunez and go back to McCarthy, but Jan Bednarek tried to block the ball and in doing so the ball looped up and lost enough pace to give Nunez a chance of getting it, Alex McCarthy perhaps wary of the goal he conceded in the League game hesitated and the Liverpool man was left one and one to slot it past him on 24 minutes.
The second goal was a piece of slick passing by the visitors and well finished by Harvey Elliot.
Now it looked like Saints could crumble, Liverpool looked like they had a second, but McCarthy made a great save low down to his left, the home fans were glad to get into half time only 2-0 down.
After the break Saints seemed to have a renewed confidence and although we got a bit of a break when a ball deflected into Cameron Archers path, he was still a long way out and cut inside to fire in a curling unstoppable shot into the far corner, now it was game on.
With the crowd rising led by the Northam End, Saints made a couple of changes and could have equalised with two attempts in 30 seconds, the first saw Yuri Sugawara pour forward and hos cross was met well by Cameron Archer from close ranhe only to see the Liverpool keeper pull off a wonder save, the ball went back out to the Japanese wing back who crossed deep and it saw Fernandez chest the ball down hit a low shot that was blocked by a last ditch tackle, now the visitors really knew they were on the rack.
But Saints didn't have it all their own way, Taylor Harwood Bellis had to clear off his own line and the rebound needed a timely block.
Then came the games controversial moment as the game entered it's last knockings, a long clearance from McCarthy caught the Liverpool defence asleep and Mateus Fernandes got in behind Jarell Quansah the last man, he was in on goal.
It looked a foul and the Saints fans screamed for a penalty, referee Simon Hooper bottled the decision, he waved play on, the replays showed that Quansah had an arm over both shoulder of Fernandes, he was clearly impeding him, although in truth it started just outside the box.
Hooper faced with making a decision that would mean Quansah would have to be red carded gave nothing, with no VAR that was the final decision on the matter, perhaps it would not have changed the result, a free kick on the edge of the box was no guarantee of a goal, but it would have been nice to get some luck.
At the end of the day the Southampton supporter applauded their team for their effort, it was a defeat but it did not feel like that, it felt like we had restored our pride and that although the hesitation in sacking Russell Martin might well have already cost us a fighting chance of relegation, that the shackles have been taken off and we can perhaps put in a fighting performance or two and not go down with a whimper.
So a night when pride has been restored, you feel that if we had played like this for the first 4 months of the season, yes we might well be in relegation trouble, but we might well also have been outside of the bottom 3.
Now we have three League game coming up that we can go into with, if not confidence but hope.