Craig Fleming was full of praise for his young charges following an imperious victory over Manchester City to get their Premier League Cup campaign off to a flyer.
Fleming's Under-18s controlled the 90 minutes at Staplewood; a fortuitous own goal opened the scoring, before impressive strikes from Will Smallbone and Kornelius Hansen bolstered Saints' ascendancy.
"Really pleased with the win," Fleming began. "As always we base it on performance, and the boys were tremendous individually. Collectively very organised.
"It was probably one of the best performances I've seen since I've been at the club. The performance is right up there with beating Man United in the Youth Cup.
"The game plan doesn't change, we have a way of doing things. It is tried and tested, it works. I thought they were fantastic today."
The Saints youngsters also face Norwich City and Reading in the group stages, with Wednesday's positive result edging them a step closer to qualification.
Suitably pleased with the individual and collective quality on show, Fleming added: "I thought all three goals were good. The first goal was fortunate but we've worked the press, which forced the first goal.
"The second two were fantastic, Kornelius is icey cold in front of goal, he's very clinical.
"The only negative is that it could have been four, five, six or seven. We had very good chances, a bit more clinical in front of goal and we could have had a few more today."
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