I always look to the game against Everton as a barometer on how our season is likely to go. Despite their pretensions, they are firmly on the same sort of level as Saints, if not a little worse off on the playing staff front. I expect a home win against them and we've done fairly well against them in recent years. Only the 7-1 away cuffing brings back bad memories.
On last night's performance, both sides were dreadful and would be relegated if they kept it up all season.
For a pleasant change though, Saints came away with three points having played much better in earlier games and coming away with nothing.
Strachan brought back Dodd and Lundekvam from injury and kept faith with Brett Ormerod up front ahead of Marians Pahars Paul Telfer had to make way for Dodd at right back and couldn't force the recently impressive Fernandes from the right of midfield.
It was Everton who started the brighter of the two sides, putting early pressure on the Saints goal. A header from Weir from the penalty spot served as an early warning as Saints seemed not to have left the changing room.
Bridge looked to be Saints best bet going forward as the Saints midfield were playing far too deeply making Beattie and Ormerod looking a bit lost up front. The England left back put a half chance over the bar after 15 minutes.
Radzinski put Everton's first real chance from only eight yards out put it over the bar form Campbell's pass. In Radzinski and Campbell Everton were showing that at least they had forwards who were capable of getting in good runs off the ball and could stretch opposing defences.
This is an area Saints are particularly poor at and have been for some considerable time. All too often we take the let's hoof it up to Beattie approach and hope he can flick it on. It's sadly something Saints have had to rely on as there really isn't the creativity coming from the midfield and there isn't the movement up front.
The exception to this is Anders Svensson, who looks wasted in our team. He has an excellent first touch coupled with the awareness to play telling passes. Unfortunately no one else around him has enough vision to get into space and he invariably has to choose the less effective options because of this.
Wayne Bridge put in a cross for Brett Ormerod, who attempted an overhead kick after 25 minutes. God forbid Saints could create anything simple along the ground. Brett looked very isolated upfront. I don't know whether that's because he's not quite up to this level yet, or whether it's just the lack of creativity from the midfield. Answers on a postcard please.
The most exciting incident of the first half was unfortunately Gordon Strachan's dismissal from the technical area. Fourth Official Steve Dunn took exception because Strachan had one or two more important things to worry about than the boundaries of the technical area. Strachan didn't look to have done much so the match report should make an interesting read.
Although Strachan got as close to the pitch as he could he would have had an idea of how desperate Saints looked from the stands along with the rest of us. A deflected Fernandes shot was countered by three successive Everton corners.
Towards the end of the half Saints midfield went entirely missing, and Everton were being given an easy time of it. I keep waiting for Rory Delap to step up a gear, but I'm beginning to worry that there isn't one. It's a little unfair to bring up the record £4 million price tag, if only because it shows us to be the Premiership skinflints.
However, I'm sure he played better stuff for Derby. He looked pretty capable going forward. Perhaps he just excelled under the pressure Derby were under and the extra responsibility he had.
Saints had one more chance before the break but it was cleared by David Weir. Does this make the Faeroe islands a better attacking force than Saints ? After the first half I didn't think there was a doubt.
Strachan's half time talk must have been a gem. I doubt he could have been in the best of moods, much like the rest of us. Having said that, Everton were equally poor. Their midfield had a decent spell at the end of the half. Unfortunately it wasn't at the same time as Campbell and Radzinski looked threatening which was in the first few minutes.
Paul Jones would no doubt have been well slated if he had failed to deal with a nasty, bobbling Gravesson shot. Gravesson usually looks pretty good against us. This is basically because he's not shy when it comes to running at people and having a go. This clearly isn't something Saints see from their own midfield often and so find it hard to cope.
Everton had become pretty anonymous in the second half. While this may sound like good news, Saints find it really hard to break down team. As Everton were settling for a point it was going to be a long 30 minutes.
Strachan rang the changes with the introduction of Pahars for Ormerod and Kanchelskis for Svensson.
Pahars has looked a little rusty of late, but he looked a lot sharper last night and was arguably Saints best player. He made an immediate impact. The Everton defence had been able to easily deal with the lack of decent runs made by Beattie and Ormerod. Now they had the lightning Latvian to contend with. Even a poor Saints performance is livened by watching Marians' great positioning and watching the centre halfs trying to work out what he's going to do next.
Although Saints increased their amount of possession, Everton almost caught them on the break, Paul Jones making some regulation stops.
Last night definitely brought out the best and worse of Jonah. Some good stops a couple of excellent saves and plenty of flapping around at set pieces. I might be wrong, but I thought that Jones was actually trying to be a little better at dealing with these things last night. It didn't always come off but there have been all round improvements since Niemii's arrival.
Since Jones has been carrying around the same flaws for the last five years, I have to ask why in the hell has it taken until now for them to be addressed ? Was there such poor training or is it only now that he has had to fight for his place ?
After James Beattie picked up a fairly tame booking, the Everton players began to fall down if he was anywhere within five yards of them.
Everton'splay acting made it all the more satisfying when Saints began to up the tempo in the last twenty five minutes.
Dodd came off clearly lacking match sharpness and on came the highly under rated Paul Telfer.
Some good work from Delap gave an opportunity for Pahars, but his header was comfortably saved by Gerrard. This was followed up by a quick Marsden free kick which resulted n a deflected Fernandes shot.
Although Saints were the better team, there was no way they ere ever going to score form anything other than a set piece. Which is exactly what they got after the tricky Pahars was pushed over in the box by the internationally clueless David Weir. Marians stepped up and converted an excellent spot kick and the fans cheered their approval mixed with yawns having been so rudely woken up.
While so many sides try futilely to try and keep possession when going for a win, Saints abandoned that approach in favour of playing ping pong football with Everton. Neither side could keep the ball for a significant period of time. Paul Jones dreadful goal kick didn't exactly ease the defensive pressures as it sailed off into the stand. Another black mark for his detractors to pounce on.
Williams and Lundekvam played very well with Lundekvam in particular looking impressive.
Some last second drama saw Jonah spill an effort into the box, which was then pounced on by Kevin Campbell. Some timid appeals for a penalty were thankfully dismissed by the utterly abysmal Steve Bennett. I thought that professionalism was supposed to increase the standard.
Fabrice Fernandes had one final go from eighteen yards, which was just about visible above the absolute mass of people who had decided to leave the ground early. I thought we'd declared war on Iraq and everyone was heading, if not to the bunkers, at least the nearest TV.
Aggressiveness was certainly on David Moyes mind as I'm told he went absolutely ballistic at the referee after the game. I would have been upset too if I had an official in my pocket and still couldn't win.
So while the dearth of action gave me plenty of time to pick faults with our entire team, let's remember the positives.
Jones looks much better now we have Niemii. The Finn probably thought he would walk into the side, but Jonah's hanging on. Lundekvam was excellent and is a great Premiership class centre half.
Bridge looked very capable again. He's the complete textbook left back and the best in the country. I'd just like to see him chuck the text book out the window and give us some more of those great attacking runs. Marsden is capable of covering and always gives 100%. On the other flank Fernades slipped back a little but still looks promising and I thought Telfer did well again when he appeared. I still prefer him on the right of midfield though.
Anders Svensson is a class act and I hope he's still here on the day the players around him have improved their games.
While Beattie looked like a big lump, at least Marians was back and looked very dangerous.
Finally, three points can't be sniffed at regardless of what had to be done to get them.
Marian Pahars scored the only goal to help Southampton record their first win of the season.
The winner came in the 72nd minute when Pahars was brought down by Everton defender David Weir, who was booked for protesting at the decision by referee Steve Bennett.
But while Everton had cause for complaint as Pahars tumbled theatrically, they had only themselves to blame for at least drawing.
Everton had seven clear scoring chances and forced a total of 13 corners but was still unable to beat goalkeeper Paul Jones.
Jones made a succession of important saves from Tomasz Radzinski, Thomas Gravesen and Kevin Campbell.
But Weir, Radzinski and Campbell were all guilty of bad misses as Southampton clung on desperately at times.
In contrast Everton goalkeeper Paul Gerrard had little to do apart from turning around a long shot from Rory Delap and then saving at the foot of the same player.
Kent referee Bennett had a busy night and in the 26th minute acted on the advice of his fourth official Steve Dunn in dismissing Southampton manager Gordon Strachan from the touchline.
Strachan had remonstrated with Dunn after the award of a free kick on the other side of the field against one of his players, Wayne Bridge.
Bennett gave Strachan a stern lecture before sending him to sit for the rest of the match in the directors' box.
Southampton brought on Pahars in the 55th minute and also introduced at the same time Russian international and former Everton winger Andrei Kanchelskis for his debut.
Kanchelskis struggled to make an impact in the time available to him as Southampton held on desperately at times to their victory.
Another player making his debut, Everton Chinese international defender Li Weifeng marred an otherwise impressive first appearance with an injury-time booking for dissent