Alan Pardew was pleased to see his side run out convincing winners at Bristol Rovers, but admitted that it was a relief to get the three points.
The manager felt that that the result was a reward for the endeavour and togetherness that his players have shown since the start of the campaign.
"We were comfortable in terms of controlling the game almost from the start to the finish, that doesn't happen often at any level, so we are pleased with that," he said.
"It was a big relief because if we hadn't got a result here today then we would have had to play under a lot of pressure on ourselves ahead of next Saturday at home. Now we have a win under our belts and hopefully we can get a home win on Saturday which will be very important to us."
Lee Barnard capped off the win with the fourth - a deserved effort for his own fine start to the season.
"It's ironic really, I actually thought that Lee had a below par performance compared with the performances he has put in, because he has probably been our best player. Then he gets a goal, and a penalty, so you can't have it both ways with Lee it seems! It was nice for him, he is establishing himself with Rickie up top and they are still pushed hard by David Connolly of course who came on and I thought did terrific. He's deserved a goal because of his start, he's been one of our top players."
Despite taking a comfortable lead, new signing Guly was brought on for five minutes at the end, as the Saints fans were calling for his introduction.
"There were a lot of positives today, Guly got a bit of the action to show what it is all about, Ryan Dickson I thought was very good when he came on, he showed a lot of desire in the tackle and won some important things for us.
"Guly got caught in possession with his first bit of play, which is typical of this division. He isn't going to have the time on the ball he might have had in Italy, so that was a nice welcome for him! He did some nice things after that though, and he is going to be an asset for us."
Saints started the scoring on ten minutes to register the club's 100th league strike against the Gas, and it came from an unlikely source, as Jose Fonte celebrated his first goal for the team.
"Importantly it was a set play. Obviously we were so poor at those the other day that we concentrated on that, so to get a goal from a set play was brilliant. If you want to get promoted you need to score a certain number of set play goals, so it was nice to get that in the net.
"It just reinforced the start, because we couldn't have gone another twenty five minutes like we have in other games and not scored, so it was very pleasing to get that goal."
The only downside from the match was another injury setback for Adam Lallana, who was forced off the field within seconds of the re-start after half time.
"Adam is a worry. It's not all rosy here today as we are going to have to see how Adam is because it doesn't bode well when a player has to come off at half time. It's still his knee, which he has been restricted with all year, so that's a worry for me and the staff and we will have to make sure we get that sorted this week.
"I thought we had a tremendous following here today, especially when you consider the results that we have had at the start, so I would like to thank them," the gaffer concluded.
"It's all about winning the next game, that's all we can do. We have to defend our trophy on Tuesday night, that's the next game, so we will go to win that one."
