GORDON STRACHAN saw his side fire themselves into the top four of the Premiership but admitted: "We're a middle of the league club."

The Saints boss was delighted with his side's 3-0 St Mary's victory in the first league meeting of the south coast rivals for almost 16 years.

But he was quick to play down the talk of finishing in the fourth and final Champions League place. Such talk is surfacing after yesterday's win made it three league victories on the bounce - after the previous eight Premiership matches had produced just ONE goal!

Strachan said: "The three points is manna from heaven and for a middle of the league club like us to pick up nine points from three games is fantastic, it really is.

"It's not the derby w0hich concerns me but the three points - it's huge for a club like us.

"We are a middle of the league club, let's not kid ourselves.

"We're trying to get better and are trying to be one of the better middle of the league clubs - let's get that right."

He added: "It makes no difference where we are now.

"There's people been in and out of fourth in the league and because we need to make a headline we need to talk about Champions League, Europe and all the rest of it.

"We must have been talking about six, seven, eight, nine teams doing that this year and it will be like that until around April.

"Now, when we get around April and if we're still in that position, then that's a different thing."

Saints defeated Harry Redknapp's Pompey thanks to goals from Jason Dodd, Marian Pahars and James Beattie.

But, despite their recent form, Strachan says he will tuck into his Christmas dinner feeling the same as 15 other Premier League mangers.

"If you ask 15 managers the same thing they will say there is the top three plus Newcastle and Liverpool who will be saying 'we should be fighting for the Champions League' and that leaves 15 of us," he said.

"If you had a poll of them right now and said 'you'll be sixth at the end of the season' everyone of them would be absolutely delighted.

Strachan praised the strength of his squad, which was yesterday strong enough to survive without the injured Matthew Oakley, Graeme Le Saux and Rory Delap.

Fabrice Fernandes, Agustin Delgado, Fitz Hall and Darren Kenton, meanhwhile, couldn't even make the bench.

That made Strachan re-iterate his claim that he probably WON'T spend when the transfer window opens next month.

"Unless something exceptional appears we're doing alright. We've got some good young kids, five strikers we can call on, so we're not bad at all," he remarked.

"And I said that before this run - I believed that before we had these wins."