In recent years, Southampton have been the sort of team that clubs like Crystal Palace have looked up to.

They’ve played attractive football; have a strong focus on their academy and until recently have looked like disrupting the stubborn hold that the top six clubs have had on the league.

So to beat them comfortably made me really proud of how far we’ve come under Alan Pardew.

I know it was only 1-0 and we quite possibly could have come away with nothing, but we controlled the game and would have won by a lot more had their keeper not been doing his best Wayne Hennessey impression.

I honestly thought that we played better on Saturday than we did against Newcastle, Southampton were just more disciplined in defence and more threatening going forward.

It was just a wonderful performance, with nobody having a bad game.

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They just couldn’t cope with the relentless, positive play from Yannick Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha and even when they were able to double up on them and keep them quiet for a bit, Connor Wickham and the rest of the midfield were able to capitalise on the gaps they were leaving.

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We need to carry this momentum and try to build on this little unbeaten run we’ve started, starting away at Stoke, who haven’t beaten us since Holloway was in charge.

If you look up the word boring in the dictionary, you’ll find a picture of Mark Hughes and Peter Crouch wearing matching ‘his and hers’ Stoke City dressing gowns, eating unseasoned chicken and drinking red topped milk as they watch another episode of Coronation Street and discuss austerity.

You can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter – perhaps a bit cliché, but a relevant saying in regards to the recent transformation of Stoke.

There’s a sense of altruism in the Staffordshire air, as Hughes and co. are making a habit of providing a home for stagnating and damaged former prospects, having brought in the likes of Bojan, Shaqiri and Affelay in an effort to rid themselves of the unattractive reputation that Tony Pulis was kind enough to bequeath to them.

They’re just a Freddy Adu and Josh McEachran away from renaming themselves ‘Wasted Potential FC’.

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Recruiting broken European cast offs doesn’t make you Barcelona in the same way that drinking prosecco in Tiger Tiger’s VIP section and wearing a tiara doesn’t make you a socialite.

The harsh reality is that Stoke will always be a boring, ugly side that lacks ambition and will always struggle to surpass their comfort zone of never really being in danger of relegation, whilst also never kicking on and attempting to challenge for a European place.

You could argue they’ve had some good results and did well to win against Chelsea last month, but who the hell hasn’t beaten them this season?

By no means am I saying it’ll be an easy game, they do have creativity in their midfield, supported by a solid defence and arguably this season’s most impressive keeper in goal.

News Shopper:

It’s going to take a big performance to get anything out of the game, but we have no reason to fear anybody at the moment with the confidence we have in the side.

‘There are no easy games in this league’ is a phrase that’s been repeated to death, however, the next three games are against teams in the bottom half and our position in the table at the turn of the year will be a real eye-opener as to how far we can go this season.

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