Saints broke their curse of losing to teams with new managers by defeating Paul Ince’s Notts County – after finally getting things right tactically.

Nigel Adkins was adamant that even when his side were trailing – with the game seemingly drifting away from them – that the way he had laid his side out was correct.

And his patience and belief in his methods were rewarded as Saints came back to win.

“Even in the first half, the game wasn’t going our way but tactically it was still the right formation to play,” reflected Adkins.

“When you’re on the sidelines and it’s not going right you think ‘do I change the personnel, do I change the shape?’ “You try and be calm on the sidelines because it is very easy to get dragged into the rigmaroles of the game and kick every football, butwe were only 1-0 down and still in the game.

“As the game went on we started to get in the ascendency.

“Second half I thought the longer the game would go we would get the opportunities and it proved to be that way.

“It underlined the group of players we’ve got and we can make substitutions because we have a strong group of players that can help get a victory.”

He added: “Great credit to the players who have shown great character to turn the game around.

“It wasn’t going our way in the first half and the players have responded very well in the second half and we’ve got a well deserved victory.”

Adkins was not surprised at how Notts took the lead – a superb Ben Davies delivery from a corner being headed in.

“Yes, we talked about before the game that the set play delivery of Davies is exceptional,” said the Saints boss.

“We knew it would be a threat so we talked about not giving cheap set plays away.

“Credit to them, they’ve got a new manager in place and were certainly up for it and we had to earn the right to play.

“We maybe weren’t as competitive as I would have liked us to have been first half but we have to give the opposition a bit of credit for that.”