Manchester City must beat Southampton on Saturday -- otherwise their stunning win at Newcastle last weekend will effectively be ruled out, according to Shaun Goater.

The Bermuda striker scored one of the most important goals of his career at St. James' Park last Saturday to give City a surprise 1-0 win and real hope of lifting themselves out of the Premier League relegation zone. The result left Joe Royle's team just one point adrift of fourth-from-bottom Middlesbrough, with a home match against unpredictable Southampton coming up this weekend.

"If we don't win against Southampton, then the win against Newcastle will be void, in a sense,'' Goater told The Royal Gazette yesterday.

"We have to start winning our home games. But it will be difficult, Southampton are a funny team. I think they have 38 points with 11 games to play, so they are pretty much safe.

"The result on Saturday was important. Each win we get now becomes more and more important because it gets us closer to 42 points. We are going to need to get somewhere around that to be safe.'' Few gave City much chance of coming away from Newcastle's imposing stadium with a victory, but Goater's 61st-minute goal and a solid defensive display from his team-mates silenced the vast majority of the 52,000 crowd.

"We thought we played well and deserved the win,'' said Goater. "It's a great stadium and their crowd made a hell of a lot of noise and they were like a 12th man for Newcastle.

"But the way we played, we did a good job of not letting their crowd play a big part, because they did not open us up. Our defence played really well and (Alan) Shearer did not get a clear-cut chance.'' The goal came after Goater ran onto a pass by Ukrainian star Andrei Kanchelskis and kept his cool in a one-on-one against Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given.

"Andrei had been doing quite well throughout and when he cut inside to make a diagonal run, I decided to make a diagonal run as well and he played it straight through to me,'' said the striker.

"I side-footed it across the 'keeper and it was good to see it go in. And then we were under the cosh for the last 20 minutes.'' Three points for City had intensified the battle to escape the drop, said Goater.

"If we can now go on and get a win in our next couple of games, then teams like Derby will be dragged back into it,'' he said. "The last few weeks they've done quite well and maybe they were starting to think they were safe.'' Despite City's poor home form, City's famously loyal fans were living up to their reputation and that could be a great help to the players.

"There is no feeling among the players that the fans are losing patience yet,'' said Goater. "That is great, because you need to have your own supporters right behind you in a situation like this.

"They are going to be so vital for us in the weeks ahead. They can be our 12th man. Now is the time for us to go out and make our own luck. We can't use referees as excuses for poor results.

"There were some good signs against Newcastle. They are a very good team and to come away with a win was great.'' The feel-good factor following Saturday's triumph had been apparent in training yesterday morning, added Goater. "The training was a lot more upbeat. Whenever you get a win, it does lift the spirit at the club.'' The bottom three in the Premier League will be relegated to Division One at the end of the season.

City, like the three clubs directly above them, Middlesbrough, Derby County and Everton, have 10 games left to play. City have 26 points to Boro's 27, while both Everton and Derby have 31 points.