CHARLIE Austin believes Saints have found the momentum they desperately need in their bid for Premier League survival.

The victory against Bournemouth last Saturday gave Saints hope of climbing out the bottom three in their remaining three games.

“There’s always been hope and I think the fans believe that hope and we need to push on,” the striker said.

“We’ve got a big game next Saturday evening against Everton.

“It’s going to be tough for us but hopefully we can go up there, get three points and take another major step to safety.”

Saints have not won at Goodison Park since November 1997 but head to Merseyside knowing if they break that run of 12 games without a win at the Toffees, Premier League survival will be within their grasps.

“It should give us momentum, us, the fans, everybody,” Austin said about the 2-1 Cherries win last time out.

“Our main aim is to stay in the Premier League and that’s what we’re going to do.

“It was important. It’s nice to get the three points. We deserved it, I feel like we were the better team and we move on now.”

Everton are in good form having won four of their last seven top-flight matches, and have done Saints two favours in that run, beating fellow relegation battlers Stoke and Huddersfield.

It will be the Toffees’ final home game of the season on Saturday and it seems likely it will also be Sam Allardyce’s last home game as manager.

For Saints it starts a crunch four-day period which also includes a huge trip to fellow strugglers Swansea on Tuesday.

Mark Hughes’ side will be looking to do the double over the Toffees, having beaten them 4-1 at St Mary’s when David Unsworth was in caretaker charge of the Blues back in November.

Up until the Cherries victory last Saturday, Saints hadn’t won at home in the league since that day.

But, having stopped the rot, Austin reckons the club’s rivals for survival will be looking over their shoulders.

“We hadn’t won since November. Of course it meant something – we’ve pulled a [couple of points] back and we’ve given ourselves a massive, massive chance now and teams above us will now be looking behind them,” the 28-year-old said.

The former QPR frontman, who has seven goals for Saints this season, is eager not to look any further forward than the next game, though.

“Nah, next game. The next game’s Everton and we try and get three points there,” he said when asked what the points target is.