MAYA Yoshida struck the winning goal for Saints against Crystal Palace and then urged his team-mates to keep the goals flowing as they plot a Premier League ascent.

The Japanese international scored his first league goal of the season to give Saints the lead on 84 minutes, before James Ward-Prowse added a third moments later in the 3-1 win at St Mary’s.

“We have to be more clinical in front of goal,” he said. “But we got three goals and hopefully there’s more goals to come at West Brom on Saturday.

“We will also be targeting another clean sheet too.”

The victory lifted Saints to 9th in the top-flight and to seven points off Saturday’s opponents West Brom with two games in hand.

It was Saints’ first win at St Mary’s since January and Yoshida admitted that, after a frustrating period on home turf, his goal brought relief and delight in equal measure.

“Because last month we didn’t play at home and we were, including the supporters, missing the winning feeling,” he said.

“We can celebrate together now and hopefully against West Brom.”

He added: “The most important thing is we got three points because we have been waiting for this win for a long time – especially after not playing at St Mary’s for so long either.

“The fans expected a lot from us, so we could answer that today and we’re really happy.

“The most important thing now is to win against West Brom because we can catch up with them really quickly.

“The table is really close, so it’s important to keep winning.”

The central defender is eager to build momentum.

He said: “We have to keep winning because the table is really tight. If we lose twice, we could drop really quickly.

“If we win twice, we can look more above.”

After claiming the triumph, the 28-year-old was in a forgiving mood after referee Roger East waved away two big penalty shouts for Saints in the first-half.

With Claude Puel’s men trailing 1-0 after Christian Benteke’s opener, Jeff Schlupp appeared to handle in the box, before Shane Long was barged over by Luka Milivojevic.

“In my opinion we should have got two penalties, but we’ve won 3-1 so it’s okay,” said Yoshida.

“I don’t like to speak about the referee too much because sometimes we get lucky and sometimes unlucky because the referee is human as well.

“Sometimes they make mistakes and sometimes they work very well.”