Jan-Paul Saeijs tasted that rarest of things on his debut – a Saints win and one he admitted was barely deserved.

The Dutch centre half only joined the club on Thursday from Roda JC on a loan until the end of the season that will be made permanent if Saints avoid relegation.

He was thrust straight into the heat of battle against Barnsley at Oakwell and won header after header as his new team scrapped a 1-0 win to ease their relegation fears.

Saeijs said: “When you win it’s always a good start.

“Four days ago I had contact with Mark Wotte and it went very fast and in three and a half days I signed my contract.

“First half was a little bit difficult, we gave away a lot of chances but people say in football that if a team doesn’t take many chances the other team will take the game and that happened in the second half.

“In the second half we played much better than in the first half and we won.

“I don’t think it was a fair result because Barnsley should have won with all the chances they had but sometimes you have to steal the points and we did that and we need the points.”

For full story see today's Daily Echo.