Four in four and a new lease of life for his team and manager. Charlie Austin has reinvigorated Saints’ season.

Though there will be much understandable frustration at Saints that they again played so well against one of the Premier League big guns and failed to get what they deserved from the game, there are many positives.

Most of those revolve around Austin, either directly or indirectly.

Saints have had a long run of success in recent years playing with a target man type of striker, a focal point for the team.

For whatever reason, it seemed the club wanted to change style, go for something more fashionable, with players trying to get in behind and playing on the shoulder of the last man.

The result has been a lack of goals.

Mauricio Pellegrino has tried combination after combination of his squad, presumably trying to find something that might work.

It eventually led to Austin getting in the side, and they haven’t looked back.

Obviously, four goals in four games is highly significant for Saints, but it is much more than that.

This a squad that know how to play, and play well, with a striker of his type up front.

They look collectively so much more at home with Austin through the middle. They just tick.

And it is bringing the best out of Dusan Tadic, who we all know can be so creative, but loves to play with that sort of player as we saw with his combination with Graziano Pelle.

Austin’s recall came at a time when Saints were struggling, and his four games since have seen a comfortable win over Everton, a late defeat at Man City, when he only had a cameo role, a draw at Bournemouth and the same result against Arsenal.

Saints look happier again, they look more positive.

Despite having played so well against big guns such as Man United, Man City and Arsenal and having been denied one way or another, there are some very good signs there at the moment.

You sense the crowd know that too. From being edgy and anxious they appreciate what is going on, and against Arsenal, though Saints were defensively so solid they were also prepared to go forward too, and it looked so much better for it.

Saints’ positivity paid dividends as they flew out of the traps, taking the lead after just three minutes.

Austin was at the heart of it all, winning a ball from a throw in, and then playing a one-two with Tadic.

The Serbian’s brilliant reverse pass found Austin’s overlapping run on the outside and the clinical finish, as the striker brought it under control before burying it past Petr Cech, was utterly predictable.

What was less predictable was that Saints and Austin would get another fantastic chance just two minutes later which this time they wouldn’t take.

Again it was Tadic with the through ball and Austin in behind but he didn’t connect quite as cleanly as he may have hoped attempting to drill low and across Cech and the keeper was able to save.

Cech was at it again on 28 minutes, this time having to stop from his own player after the ball ricocheted off the shins of Granit Xhaka.

However, that moment was the breaking of largely one-way traffic as Arsenal bossed possession and launched wave after wave of attack.

Saints got pinned back at times, though were very well organised and kept the narrow central channels Arsenal tried to exploit nice and tight, and were encouragingly willing to commit forward on the counter attack.

Fraser Forster did have to make first half saves from Alexandre Lacazette and twice from Aaron Ramsey, most notably producing a superb stop to his left on 32 minutes.

Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg also made a superb last ditch challenge, and Lacazette fired over, but Saints got in at the break with the lead.

The second half followed a similar pattern.

Though it was Arsenal who had most of the ball, it was Saints who created the best openings, and Saints who continued to be so impressively disciplined in every aspect of their play.

Nathan Redmond smashed a strike goalwards eight minutes after the restart but straight at Cech, while the Gunners keeper watched and hoped as Oriol Romeu’s effort from 25 yards moved in the air before clipping the top of the bar and going over.

They also crafted a golden opportunity on the counter attack, with Tadic playing in Ryan Bertrand.

The left back was one-on-one with Cech and lifted the ball past the Arsenal keeper but tamely wide of the far post.

Arsenal were full of intricate passing football, trying to play their way into the net, but the longer the game went on the shorter of ideas they looked, and the more confident Saints became.

It really seemed as though they would get the three points as the best the Gunners could manage was an Alexis Sanchez free kick which was a fairly comfortable save for Forster.

That was until two minutes from time when there was more late heartbreak.

Sanchez lofted in a cross from the right, sub Olivier Giroud got just ahead of Virgil van Dijk and flicked a header into the far corner to equalise.

Despite that, the mood is now one of greater positivity and optimism, and rightly so.