And Strachan said afterwards: “Brett was fully focused – and I was delighted that he scored a hat-trick.
“It is fair to say he could have had many more but it has got him started.
“He scored three for the reserves last week and has worked hard to get into the first team.”
“I said to my strikers, Ormerod included, now was the time to stand up and be counted.
“I have not got a problem with their work-rate but it is the end product which has been letting them down and I told them they need to be focused in the last 25 yards.
“We have found goals a problem this season but that was not the case tonight.
“We were a bit fortunate with some of the goals we scored but credit to us for our work-rate again.”
“If you do not put pressure on your opponents you will never discover their limitations.
“We pressed Tranmere from the start and got a soft goal and that got us off the mark and gave us some confidence.”
Spare a thought for Tranmere boss Ray Mathias who must have been gutted at his team's display, especially after their success against us last time out. Ray said: “I told my players they had let themselves down. I slaughtered them in that dressing room.
“You cannot play against sides even in our league and give away such poor goals. To give a Premiership side goals is asking for trouble.
“We pressed the self-destruct button from the first whistle to the last.
“I told my players they cannot expect to give away goals to Premiership sides and expect to survive.
“All credit to Southampton. But we felt we contributed to four of their goals.”
“Having got ourselves back into the game with an equaliser we then blew it all by letting (Fabrice) Fernandes run through for the second Southampton goal and the third was simply diabolical.
“Even at half-time when we were 3-1 down I thought we could get into the game again, but almost immediately we gave away a stupid goal as a free-kick and we never recovered.
“Southampton have some great players who are experienced and will take advantage of anything you give them.
“A lot of our fans had made the long journey south with expectations of us at least putting up a fight. We have let them down.”
So, there you have it. Tranmere gifted us the goals and while our work rate was excellent, we were "fortunate" and should have scored more. Strachan really knows how to bring you down gently doesn't he.