"To be fair, I didn't think it was possible for us to sign him, to be honest with you, because of the financial side," he said.

"We have a structure that we stick to and for him to move home and alter the financial structure of his life is saying something about him.

"People were saying 'He won't come because of the money' and 'He won't come because he wants to stay in the North-East'.

"But he's blown that apart now. He's saying 'I just want to be a footballer' and these days, when players are sitting on their backsides and picking up their money at many clubs, it's good to see somebody sacrificing financial gain for ambition."

"He showed right away what is clear to anybody who wants to even bother listening to football, that the most important people in your team are your strikers, and I thought the two of them, second-half, were huge, I really did," Strachan said.

While Saints were by far the better side in terms of technical ability yesterday, it means nothing if you are two goals down. Although Leicester's first was from a very fortunate penalty, their second showed that Saints defence weren't up to the physical challenge of keeping the likes of Les Ferdinand from creating chances.

Paul Jones may well have tipped it over on other occassions, and many suspect that Niemi definitely would. Dodd had a poor first half although with little pressure being relieved by his midfield, you could see why.

With Saints clearly on the back foot in the first fifteen minutes, you could see them struggle to get a grip on the game in defence. Only Graeme Le Saux remained a consummate professional.

Although Saints got back into the game and were beginning to dominate the possession, it was difficult to picture where a goal was coming from. Anders Svensson, tucked in behind James Beattie did little and there was only a rare effort from Delap and Oakley.

With Leicester's tall, physical defence, there was little point in playing the ball to Beattie;s head and McCann and especially Telfer on the flanks offered little else early on. At least McCann looked capable of offering more attacking options and it was no surprise when Telfer was later substituted for Fernandes.

With Saints crying out for a creative spark for the second half, Kevin Phillips was introduced and he was just on a different level to anyone else on the park. Particularly greedy fans will note that this performance was from a Phillips who is not supposed to be match fit. It would be quite something to see even better performances as the season goes on.

Phillips tracked back, he pestered any opponent with the ball near him, he closed down, he harried, his passing was excellent, his vision superb. These are all secondary traits however, Phillips is there to score goals and he opened his account with a thirty yard thunderbolt reminiscent of a previous owner of the number seven shirt.

The shot itself was matched by the way Phillips created space for it by completely fooling the Leicester defence.

Phillips was not only a threat from distance, but worked up close to the Leicester goal, looking for any scraps from his midfield or mistakes from his opponents.

He was on hand to play a vital part in Saints equaliser, his effort hitting the post for Beattie to finish off. Quite a performance form a player many were doubting could recapture his best form.

"That's as good a debut as I've seen, a 45-minute debut. That was excellent," said Gordon Strachan.

"Kevin felt that he could come on as a sub - he didn't think he could last 90 minutes with not having had a game since May. He showed incredible footwork and incredible bravery."

Having seen his side lose a two goal lead, Leicester boss Mickey Adams looked to the plus points from the game.

"'I'm fairly upbeat, I've got to be honest,' he said. 'It's a point on the board and my two centre-forwards have scored.

'In an ideal world, I would have preferred all three points, but it's not an ideal world all the time.

'I'm very loath to talk about individuals on a fantastic day like this. I thought the first-half was a terrific performance by us.

'The doubters and the cynics have had a field day with us and written us off before a ball had been kicked, which was understandable, but not fair, really, and I thought we put on a spirited performance.'