In a game of poor defending from both sides, Saints came back from the dead twice, to steal a point at the death, the spirit was unquestionable, the way we conceded three goals was not !
Ralph Hasenhuttl didn't try to change much in his starting line up, it was like for like with Nathan Redmond and Theo Walcott coming in to replace the two injured wide men from the win against West Brom.
Saints started strongly and looked good going forward but after the opening exchanges Chelsea poured forward in droves and found the Saints defence all at sea, Werner's opening goal saw him run far to far and fail to be closed down and it was noted that as he drilled home there were four Saints defenders in front of him, not one had closed him down and neither had any of them picked up the other two Chelsea men in the box.
On 28 minutes it looked like it would be a long day, again poor defending was in attendance, Bednarek lost Werner and his attempted header back to his own keeper fell short, McCarthy hesitated and that ment that Werner could lift the ball over him and pop up on the other side to head home.
At this point it was worrying, McCarthy made several smart saves to keep the score level and Saints weathered the storm and then with half time looming came the lifeline, a lovely ball from Adams played in Danny Ings who rounded the keeper and reduced the deficit.
In the second half Saints rolled up their sleeves and dug in, they kept the Blues at bay and created chances of their own, as the hour mark was about to tick over Che Adams chased a ball down, in truth the keeper should have eaten it up, but as Adams slid in he bottled it and missed the ball, the Saints man still had a lot to do as he kept the ball in play and with Ings buzzing around creating chaos with the Chelsea defenders, Adams cooly brought the ball back and fired high into the net from six yards.
Suddenly Saints were back in the game, but not for long, almost from the kick off Chelsea were back infront with our defence being caught napping and Werner running through unmarked to slide the ball across for Havertz who had a simple tap in.
This must have been frustrating for Ralph, seeing his side drag themselves back into the game, only to see them hand it back to the home side again.
But Saints didn't give up, they kept going and looked like they could get yet another goal, but deep into injury time it looked like all was in vain, but then the ball came out to Theo Walcott who fired at goal, could this be his first Saints goal in nearly 15 years ? at first it looked like that was the case, but Jannik Vestergaard got a slight touch with his head so was credited with the goal.
The only thing to do now was see out the last minutes of injury time and Chelsea were clearly a spent force.
Foe me the key player in the game was Che Adams, he played in Danny Ings for the first goal and did sterling work to make the second for himself, he is blossoming into a great player and like Ings he contributes to the game even if he isn't scoring, the two of them have formed a great partnership up front and compliment each other.
So this game had the good and the bad of Saints, going forward we are a threat to anyone, defensively we are poor, we cannot mark, we cannot read the game, we are a top 10 side in attacking and a Championship side defending, the addition of Mohammed Salisu can only add some improvement, but we need a leader and I am not sure he can add that, I hope I am proved wrong.
This can be a decent season, but still only five games in we have thrown points away, we should have won at Palace, we led against Spurs and now this against Chelsea, the old saying is we have nothing to fear but fear itself, I would amend that to we have nothing to fear but ourselves, a solid experienced central defence would have not let Chelsea run as ragged in the first half, it would not have switched off after the first equaliser.
But overall this felt like a win, it was still a good point against a team who had they held on in injury time would be second this morning, but truth is had we won this game we would be sixth and that would be a good start.
At the start of the season we would have taken a start of 7 points from 5 games, but at the moment that seems disappointing, it should also be noted that this was exactly the same position we found ourselves last year, three years ago in a season we went to the wire in, we started with 8 points from the opening 5 games.
I know I say the same things each week, but I do so because I am seeing the same things, we have not sorted out the glaring problem and I fear that we will continue in the same vein throughout the season and like last year it will be one of frustration and what could have been and indeed should have been.