Southampton 1-5 Chelsea, Premier League: Post-match reaction, ratings

On By Littum

Southampton made a bright start to the game and they created several dangerous situations early on. Filip Jørgensen had to make an excellent stop just minutes into his first ever Premier League start – although the play was called back for offside – but Chelsea were generally a little slow out of the blocks.

And even after we took the lead at the set-piece, the home side hit back with a well-worked ten-minute equaliser. Fortunately, not five minutes later, their goalkeeper, who was certainly not basking in glory for any part of the day, gave us the lead back.

And from there we never looked back. It would have been a massacre in the first half if the frame of the goal had not saved the hosts several times, including on a brilliant chance for Cole Palmer. But Noni Madueke would find the bottom corner from a cut-back before half-time which also saw Nkunku and Felix just miss the target.

Southampton’s first-half misery was completed with the sending off of their captain, Jack Stephens, for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair at an attacking(!) corner. Unlike the exact same incident against Cristian Romero a few years ago, VAR intervened this time and the perpetrator was rightly sent off.

The second half began as the first ended with a huge miss by João Félix and that would set the tone for the next 30 minutes. The cavalcade of horrendous misses – Noni himself could have had a hat-trick – plus another woodwork from Tosin, was finally ended by Palmer slotting it in from point-blank range into an empty net with just under a quarter of an hour remaining.

Sancho then added one for good measure, his first ever for Chelsea, improving our goal difference in the process, which could prove useful given the tight top-four/six race.

We scored five, could have scored ten.

Carefree.

  • Seven changes from the weekend; so not quite a full rotation, but lots of changes in defense and also in attack
  • Nkunku added to his team-leading goals to take him to 12 (all competitions); Palmer now tops the league for us with 9
  • Enzo, Madueke, Félix, Nkunku and Gusto with the assistants
  • Maresca gets her name sung for the first(?) time
  • Chelsea move up to second place, pending the outcome of the Arsenal-Man Utd match going on right now
  • Next: Spurs away on Sunday
  • KTBFFH

PLAYER RATING: