Southampton continued their run of good form with an eye-catching 3-0 home win against Leicester City on Tuesday night.
A brace of headed goals, either side of Finn Azaz scoring his fourth in three matches, earned Taylor Harwood-Bellis the man-of-the-match award but even that was not enough to satisfy the 23-year-old centre-back.
It wasn't too long ago that Taylor Harwood-Bellis was warming the bench under Will Still's tenure as manager.
A shambles of a performance at Hull City in September led to the former Manchester City and England player being made a scapegoat.
A long term injury had kept Harwood-Bellis out for the majority of pre-season and there could be an argument that he was brought back into the team far too early by the manager.
Coupled with the fact that Still spent far too long working out who his best centre-backs were, meant that last night's two goal hero was played alongside a myriad of partners before things settled down under Tonda Eckert.
Harwood-Bellis won't be satisfied until fans are cheering in May
Despite bagging the first brace of his career against Leicester, Harwood-Bellis is not celebrating just yet. He is still fully intent on getting promotion back to the Premier League and make up for the nightmare of last season.
“To give the fans something to cheer about again is nice, but I don’t want them just cheering now, I want them to be cheering in May,“ he told the Southampton official website.
“I think we’ve just got to keep going, keep pushing, keep the momentum going, pick up wins and come the end of the season hopefully we’ll be where we want to be.”
Remarkably, given their poor start, Saints now find themselves just three points outside the top six despite being 13th in the table. Aside from Coventry City, who are 10 points clear of Mark Robins' Stoke City side, the top half of the table is extremely tightly packed.
Last Saturday's annihilation of Charlton Athletic at the Valley has given Saints fans a taste of what the team is capable of on their day.
Something for Saints fans to get excited about
The prospect of being where they want to be in May will excite Saints fans who believe that they have the squad depth to compete at the top end of the table for automatic promotion. What was but a distant dream a month ago is now a reality and with Harwood-Bellis at his best, there's little that can stand in Southampton's way.
Harwood-Bellis' form is improving with every match and on Tuesday he had 105 touches of the ball, 21 more than any other player on the pitch. Caspar Jander (84) and Joshua Quarshie (83) were next best.
He dominated in the air with three aerial battles won and made six clearances. On top of all that, he blocked three shots and made two interceptions. Oh...and he scored two goals.
Tuesday night's performance was as close to a 10/10 performance that Saints fans are likely to see this season from any player.
Taylor Harwood-Bellis, take a bow!