When you have lost three games in a row, any win is a good win. And there is no such thing as a bad win by four goals. But equally, the context is unavoidable. This is a Southampton side who are doomed, who are letting in 2.41 goals per game, who have lost 14 of their past 17 league games and who have nothing to play for this season beyond trying to scrape together the three points that would take them above Derby’s record low of 11.
The Premier League’s unique selling point is supposed to be that anybody can beat anybody, but it’s hard to square that with this Southampton. “I’m frustrated,” said Ivan Juric, who pointed out his team had defended well for 20 minutes. “It’s a really tough situation.”
“We are in our worst moment in terms of results,” said Enzo Maresca, “but we are third, one point from third. That shows how good we have been. Now it’s a matter of trying to finish in the best way.” But a straightforward win is unlikely to have done much to assuage the irritation of some fans.
Perhaps 150 had demonstrated on Fulham Road against the ownership before kick-off, attacking Todd Boehly and Clearlake and demanding success. “We’re not Arsenal,” blazed one hand-written poster, while others chanted the names of Roman Abramovich and José Mourinho. “The fans have to trust us,” said Maresca. “We are heading in the right direction.”
Yet results are only part of the issue. Had they beaten Everton three days before Christmas, Chelsea would have gone top. Since then, they had won just two of 10 games before Southampton came to Stamford Bridge. The protest, though, felt far bigger than form. This is about the way football is going, the disconnect between fans and club, the sense that a club that was once integral to and representative of its community is now just an investment vehicle, the players assets to be traded as required.
It’s true that discontent would probably be less visible were Chelsea engaged in a battle for the title, but it doesn’t take many poor results to expose the sense of commercial soullessness just below the surface.
The downturn over the past couple of months is in part down to problems of team building when so many players have come in without a readily discernible underlying plan. Injuries clearly are part of it. Wesley Fofana, Roméo Lavia and Nicolas Jackson represent the spine of the side, and losing them has created knock-on issues elsewhere.
Without Jackson and Marc Guiu, Chelsea don’t have a natural No 9, which at a time when they are also without the width offered by Noni Madueke because of a thigh injury and Mykhailo Mudryk after his positive drugs test, has forced a complete rethink of the forward line.
Pedro Neto, naturally a wide player, has had to be drafted in as a central forward, while Christopher Nkunku, a clever and inventive inside-forward in his goalscoring days at RB Leipzig, has been repurposed as a wide player on the left. There has been a certain amount of frustration – among fans at least – about his occasionally erratic movement, but he is being asked to perform a role that does not come naturally to him and that, given how Marc Cucurella likes to invert, is essential.
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It is telling of the way the modern Chelsea are run that Nkunku, who was only signed in June 2023, feels like part of the club’s past. He officially joined a week before Mauricio Pochettino was appointed manager, scored three in five pre-season games and then was injured before the campaign began for real.
Since then, Chelsea have signed 25 players; if Nkunku feels this is not quite the club he was sold, he can hardly be blamed. Still, however uncomfortable he at times looks on the touchline, his goalscoring instincts remain sharp as he demonstrated after 24 minutes, stealing in front of Will Smallbone and braving contact with a flailing Aaron Ramsdale to nod in Tosin Adarabioyo’s header.
It was then with a more typical run infield that he set up the second for Neto. Not for the first time this season, Southampton had given their opponents a helping hand, James Bree squandering possession. Levi Colwill headed a third and Cucurella made it four with a late counter, but the sense was that they could have got almost any number had they needed to.
Their problem is there’s not much credit to be gained in pushing on an open door, and few doors have ever been as open as this Southampton.
Source: theguardian.com
