Rickie Lambert says Saturday’s win over Newcastle was the high point of the season so far.
Lambert struck the second goal just after half-time as Saints went on to record a 4-0 victory – the Club’s biggest top-flight winning margin since January 2003.
“I think that’s probably our best performance of the season,” said the striker. “I can’t stop smiling – everything went right.
“To a man, we were superb. It’s full credit to everyone at Southampton because it was a great performance.
“I thought that, from the ‘keeper all the way to the forwards, everyone was on it.
“We know that we’re capable of that because we see it every day in training. We know what kind of players we’ve got and it’s a pleasure to play with them day in and day out.
“It’s good to get the rewards with days like that, and full credit to the fans – they were singing all through the game. It was a good day.”
Saturday’s victory came six days on from a disappointing defeat to Tottenham Hotspur last weekend, with Lambert suggesting that there was not a great deal of variation between the standard of the two performances.
“I can’t say there was anything different about [Saturday], it was just that we hit it off straight away,” reasoned the frontman, who now has ten league goals to his name this season.
“Last weekend we were obviously disappointed, but it’s a hard place to go. We were desperate to bounce back.
“At first we were a little bit panicky because we had five or six clear chances that we didn’t take, so we were a bit worried – but I knew we were going to get one and, when we got it, we could calm down a little bit and play our football.
“Throughout the game, I thought we were superb. What a performance from the boys.”