Chelsea thrash ten-man Southampton: Five things we learned | OneFootball

Chelsea thrashed ten-man Southampton 5-1 at St Mary’s after Jack Stephens had been sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair.

Axel Disasi, Christopher Nkunku, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer and Jadon Sancho got on the scoresheet to add to struggling Southampton’s misery.

Here are five talking points from the game…

Attacking masterclass from Chelsea

Southampton were woeful at the back, but Chelsea punished them with some ruthless attacking play. The amount of quality and depth the Blues have in attack is outstanding, as exemplified by Enzo Maresca’s ability to bring Nkunku, who kept up his run of scoring when he starts, Joao Felix and Noni Madueke into the starting line-up without impacting the attack too much. Sancho came on late to add to the tally after Palmer had scored and the buoyant Chelsea fans chanted their manager’s name repeatedly at the end of the game after another convincing win. The good times are back at Chelsea.

Chelsea changes lead to defensive uncertainty

Maresca’s changes might have worked out in attack but there have to be question marks over the two central defenders, given there were three separate occasions during the game that a Southampton player was given a free attempt a few yards out in the centre of the box which, fortunately for Chelsea’s sake, only resulted in one goal. It was not only the fault of the central defenders. Enzo should have done much better to stop Kyle Walker-Peters for Southampton’s equaliser, for example. But their marking left a lot to be desired at times.

Overall the team Maresca named got the job done and created enough chances to win two games of football, but were given a helping hand from Southampton and were lucky not to concede more themselves.

Calamitous Southampton

There was a lot to like about Southampton’s performance when they were going forward. They started well, caused Chelsea plenty of problems and deservedly equalised after Chelsea had taken the lead. But in their own half they were an absolute disaster. Goalkeeper Joe Lumley had a terrible evening, allowing Disasi to head in for the first goal when he should have cleared, or better yet claimed the corner kick, and his poor pass to Kyle Walker-Peters was cut out by Noni Madueke, who passed to Christopher Nkunku to slot into an empty net with Lumley out of his goal to make it 2-1.

In fairness to Southampton, their injury crisis in the goalkeeper position has not helped. Aaron Ramsdale, Alex McCarthy and Gavin Bazunu are all unavailable meaning fourth choice Lumley has been unexpectedly thrust into the side and it is clear he is not capable of playing Russell Martin’s brand of passing football, despite making several saves to keep the scoreline from being even bigger. His mistake for Nkunku’s goal was the ninth error leading to a goal Southampton have made this season.

Cucurella’s curls pulled

In perhaps the strangest sending off we will see this season, Southampton defender Stephens was given a straight red card for pulling the hair of Marc Cucurella while waiting for a corner to be delivered. Having missed the incident, referee Tony Harrington was sent over to the monitor to check what had happened and deemed it to be enough for a straight red card for violent conduct, adding to Southampton’s problems. Cucurella seemed okay.

Southampton fans make their feelings known

The Southampton fans have a right to be annoyed, having seen their side make a ridiculous number of errors this season, and it looks like they have had enough. There were cheers in the first half when Lumley opted to kick the ball long instead of going short and boos for the team at half time. Plenty decided to beat the traffic and head home early with the result decided a long time ago, though whether they actually did or not given the numbers that left is questionable. Russell Martin had made it clear that he will persist with his style of play and while there are benefits in attack, they simply won’t stay up making this amount of errors.