Although no one ever forgets victories over Liverpool at Anfield, it is games of this nature that are Southampton’s bread and butter and it was about time they remembered where they left the knife. After drawing their first two home matches against beatable opposition, Southampton finally found a cutting edge at St Mary’s, feasting on Crystal Palace’s inexperience at this level to leave Ian Holloway with quite the mess on his hands.

For Holloway there was the deep frustration of a fifth defeat in six games and, back in the dugout after his touchline ban, he was left to reflect on the farcical moment when, with the scores level in the first half, Marouane Chamakh dived instead of taking a glorious chance to give Palace the lead. Holloway was critical of his striker for not shooting but refused to say whether or not Barcelona tröja he would fine him.

“I said on the line the referee got it wrong but I’ve looked at it again and he got it right,” Holloway said. “I can’t understand why he didn’t shoot or chip the goalkeeper. He felt contact on the goalie. He didn’t make the right choice. I’ll have to look at how badly he was brought down in his mind. It’s a contentious issue that I’ll talk about with my player rather than through the press.”

This was an afternoon of firsts for Southampton: a first home win in the league, a first goal from open play and, perhaps most significantly, the satisfaction of Daniel Osvaldo scoring his first goal for the club at the fifth time of asking after his record £14.6m move from Roma during the summer.

Victory took the Saints up to fourth place. Mauricio Pochettino could hardly have asked for more. “Complete happiness for any manager would be what happened today, a clean sheet and your strikers getting on the score sheet,” he said. “We’re not setting ourselves any limits. We just have to keep on believing and the players believe fully in how we want them to play.”

Palace’s sprightly performance in the first half was not without merit. Although Southampton might have taken the lead after six minutes when Joel Ward cleared Morgan Schneiderlin’s clever, looping header off the line, they played with great pace and adventure on the break, with Jimmy Kébé’s direct running a constant threat.

If only Chamakh had shown more conviction when he lolloped through on goal. He should have shot but first he lost his nerve and his feet soon followed as he tumbled over Artur Boruc in a hapless attempt to Athletic Bilbao tröja win a penalty, earning a booking for diving from Martin Atkinson instead. Any contact had been initiated by Chamakh, who was soon remonstrating with Dean Moxey, Palace’s left-back, over a throw-in.

How Palace were made to regret Chamakh’s foolishness. The second half was a minute old when Osvaldo made space on the edge of the area to drill a low shot through the bodies and into the bottom-right corner with his left foot.

Palace barely had time to digest that setback before Lambert doubled Southampton’s lead, bending a delicious free-kick from 25 yards off the inside of the post after Osvaldo had been fouled. “I didn’t like the way we capitulated,” Holloway said.

Jay Rodriguez had a third disallowed for offside but at least Palace’s fans took it in good humour, chanting: “We’re only here for a season”. It could be a long one.

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