Saints progressed through to the next round of the Carling Cup, but it wasn't a convincing performance by any means against a side who are in the relegation zone of League One.
Saints completely changed the starting line up from the one that ran out at Anfield, in doing so they put onto the field what was clearly the shadow squad, it included five full internationals plus a few who have represented their country at lower levels, on the bench Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana were included for insurance.
Given that Tadanari Lee apart, all the rest of this team had played regular Premier League football during the past 12 months you would have hoped that they would easily overcome the Robins from the West Country.
Initially that appeared to be the case as the team passed crisply and looked a cut above their opponents and when Ramirez struck a superb volley in the 15th minute it did look like the floodgates would open, they didn't however and as the half wore on City started to get to grips with Saints and went in at the break with the game still within their sights.
The longer the second half wore on the more that the visitors sensed that they could snatch a goal or two, gone was the Saints fluidity and in its place was a nervousness and lack of concentration, at the back Hooiveld and Yoshida started to look shaky whilst Kelvin Davis despite making a couple of decent saves was nowhere on a couple of crosses he should easily have dealt with and the jitters were starting to arrive.
City upped their game and really should have equalised on a couple of occasions, the change came on 74 minutes when a double substitution saw both Lee and Guly come off, in the case of Lee he appeared to be trying just a little too hard and nothing was coming off, add to that the fact he clearly isn't suited to a lone striker role and it wasn't a good night for him in terms of forcing his way into first team contention.
In the case of Guly, once again the boo boys were out in force, his laid back style makes him a target for those who see pace as being the only barometer as to how good a player is and Im sure Guly could sense the animosity from a sizeable minority in the crowd everytime he touched the ball, its fair to say his confidence and desire went down a notch with every rumbling, all Im going to say is these people have short memories, call Guly what you want but he scored some vital goals for Saints in our two promotion seasons, back then though Im sure most of his abusers couldnt be bothered going to the games.
The introduction of Rodriguez as the lone striker took the pressure of Saints as they had an outlet, although most of Rodriguez's work was in a defensive capacity in that he chased and harassed the City defenders making it difficult to bring the ball up field.
On 83 minutes the game was made safe when Hooiveld put the ball in the net from a corner and Saints easily closed out after that.
Few players on the pitch did their first team claims any good, the central trio of Cork, JWP and Steve Davis put in good battling displays but beyond those three and J Rod, few did much to suggest they could be genuine contenders for a place in the starting line up. Perhaps a little unfair on Ramirez who did score a superb goal, but for long periods he was anonymous, yes at times he showed touches of class, but in the second half especially he was one who failed to match City's enthusiasm and fight.
But the important thing is that we marched on into the last 16 of the competition, 3 Premier League clubs went out last night with a further 2 guaranteed to follow them this evening, with the possibility of 3 more, a good draw tonight could put Saints with Wembley very firmly in their sights, lets hope then they start to take this a little more seriously.