Indeed not a fatal blow - we were well beaten by a formidable side playing well. It was not a good idea to give Hazard the freedom of our penalty area in the first five minutes and after that I thought there was an air of inevitability about the result. Not sure I blame Forster for the goal but he certainly spilled a couple in the second half.

Question to those who were there: Was Bertrand fit? He didn't seem to feature much on the tv.

Martina's audition for Strictly Come Dancing for the second goal was my lowpoint. If Cedric can't stay fit for five minutes we need to address the right-back issue in January.

I am worried about our lack of effectiveness in the 'final third'. I don't see us scoring many against the top teams. 0 at Leicester, freekick/OG at Arsenal, back pass at City, 0 at Manure and 0 vs Chelsea. Lesser sides will not be as effective as Chelsea were at St. Mary's but it is surprising for a team with our aspirations that we created SO little. From early on it was obvious that we would only have one or two chances and unfortunately Austin missed them both.

Anyway - roll on Inter. Let's play a full strength side an WIN...

Another game which showed our need for one if not two more strikers. Yesterday Redmond had his worst game for the club. Clasie and Martina were just as bad.
I don't now why Hojbjerg does not start instead of Clasie. I think we would have done better yesterday if we still had Pelle and Mane. Lets hope we buy more players in January.

I don't like to be openly critical of any Saints player but I believe Clasie was pretty much absent from the action yesterday. So much so that we looked at times to be playing with ten against eleven, and against a team of Chelsea's quality that was critical.
There are only so many matches that you can punch above your weight and the reality is, despite the glimmer of an illusion, we are not top five contenders. Obviously important to get things right on Thursday and the concern must be that Inter sit back again and catch us on the break. Heads up lads, learn from yesterday's mistakes and march on.

The fact is Saints have some good and some very good players. Chelsea have some very good and some world class players. That was the difference yesterday and the score could easily have been 0-4. True, Clasie played very poorly and his passing was woeful, Bertrand didn't look quite fit and Martina was given the runaround but he won't be facing Hazard every week. The lack of goals has been apparent since the season started and we can only hope that Boufal settles in quickly and addresses that problem. That said, there won't be too many teams that leave St Marys with all three points this season.

The problem is we struggle against physical teams. Why? Because our creative players, namely Redmond and Tadic, are slight in build and can be bullied out of the game if the referee is not minded to show yellow cards when they are persistently fouled. This is what happened yesterday. Moses kept on running into Redmond as Redmond was going past him and all we ever got was a free kick but no card. I fear Boufal may experience the same problem.

No complaints about the result. Shows we are just a little bit back when compared to the top sides on their day. Felt we missed Shane Long yesterday. We could have done with someone really making a nuisance of himself to their back 3 and Cahill in particular doesn't seem to like playing against Long.

Very impressed with Chelsea, they worked hard and managed to both attack and defend in numbers helped by our ponderous build-up. I was worried at first about Claude's system but have 'bought into it'. However, this game has raised old doubts about it's lack of flexibility or a plan B. Too early to re-act, just hope confidence has not been damaged.

Clasie's lack of work rate is really infuriating. When he loses the ball for whatever reason, he just does not track back, even if it is just a few yards. Hesketh recently sprinted from box to box to pull out an awesome tackle in the U23's and whenever Harrison Reed gets a run out he is feisty and eager. Clasie needs to adopt this sort of attitude or go. Cuco Martina, cracking guy but again found wanting defensively, too many missed opportunities to cross the ball. Aside from that, I felt that we tried hard but the difference in quality was obvious to see. Chelsea top 3 this year.

Beaten by the better team on the day. Clasie and Austin are worries for me. Clasie never seems to get hold of a game and Austin looks like hes running on sand. He is a goal poacher but it is hard to see what he offers when chances are few and far between.

Hojbjerg would have been better suited to start imo...but really we just dont have that consistent quality option upfront. Tadic was not really at the races unfortunately. Puel will learn from this I`m sure but what he will do I dont know....

I see almost all Saints' matches live on TV and close ups of Austin show him often gasping for breath. Simply don't think he's fit enough for our style of play which means he lacks composure when given a chance.
i tend to guage how well we're playing by how many players offer themselves as options at our throw-ins. Yesterday it was woeful - Seemed that every throw from Bertrand or Martina they'd wait ages for someone to show and want the ball with no success resulting in regular lost possession.
I agree that Chelsea looked very strong. A good wake up call for us.

I agree with most of the above.

Chelsea played well, took their 2 chances and were very organised in defence which probably mostly negated Redmond and Tadic's efforts. Clasie and Boufal, when he came on, seemed fairly anonymous, Martina looked well outclassed and unfortunately I think he knew it, Romeu, Bertrand, Fonte and Van Dyke held it together, although Fonte seemed a bit fed up at the end. Austin, Davis and Forster seemed a bit out of sorts at times too.

I'm hoping, performance wise it was just a bad day at the office although I don't wish to take anything away from Chelsea, who were very good. We could really do with out another sustained spell of the team going missing as was the case for some periods during last season.

Fair credit to him, Puel's shuffling the deck as much as possible to try to minimise the risk of injury, the players seem to have bought into it, hopefully it's all going to work. Never a dull moment being a Saints' fan!

Nick, you say "we can compete with the top sides in this division". This game proved beyond any reasonable doubt that we simply can not.

We are further away than ever from becoming a consistent top six side. I know you will disagree but in my opinion fault lies with the club owner who does not want to invest the required amount of money to make us competitive or to extend the ground.Until she does we remain "little old Southampton ", always selling our best players but still every bodies favourite second team.If you are happy with the situation then fine but I think you will find there are an increasing numbers who are not.

For me yesterday was just a reality check. To put it simply we're just not as good as we think we are. If you look at our current squad, who would realistically get into the starting eleven at a top 5 team? Most definitely VVD, Hojberg (if he keeps improving), Bertrand, Tadic (if he sorts out his attitude), Fraser Forster (if he gets more consistency), and Sofiane Boufal (with the right attitude and fitness level). It's as simple as that really. We simply don't have the quality to compete with the best teams because our board isn't willing to invest in the right players and make us fans happy. Instead we have become a feeder club relying on our academy to generate revenue. We don't have enough ambition and that has created an element of soft-touch about us with prospective managers and how we're perceived as a football club. I can assure you VVD and Bertrand will be gone next season.

Nevertheless we are where we expect to be. Top 10 finish and a decent cup run both in the Europa League and League/FA Cup is the best we can hope for.

We are doing phenomenally well to be competing with Chelsea at all! We have only been able to do this by creating and trading players better than anyone else. To everyone who says we lack ambition, please explain where we are going to get the wages to keep people like VVD for more than a couple of years. We don't lack ambition, we just don't have the cash.

Agree with saintsnutcase. TeamCortese can complain that none of our players would get into a top 5 team. But how many West Brom/West Ham/Stoke/Bournemouth players would get in our team? It wasn't so long ago Man U wanted Fonte.

We are where we are and we don't have the resources that the top 6 sides have so it's very unlikely we will have better players. Leicester didn't have the best players last year and won the league.

snc
only the owner knows
lets hope she is a good custodion of the club
as for your point about lack of cash in the last 3 seasons the club must have picked up 400million pounds in cash where has that gone .
as far as im aware all the players we have had to buy has come from selling players in the last 3 seasons.
so the club must be cash rich or they give it to hmrc

I don't think we lack ambition or sell without a clear strategy for how we can reinvest. Well, in general anyway. I think this season was the first in which we've made a real mistake in not splashing the cash on out-and-out goalscorign front man. We've put way too much faith in poor Jay Rod, Austin, Long and Redmond. All players with known-injury problems or who are not known for being out-and-out strikers. So far we're paying for it. We were excellent yesterday for 30-35 minutes of the first half. Had we scored during that dominant spell the outcome may have been very different, but Chelsea always looked relaxed after their early goal.

As others have pointed out just to be competing with Chelsea shows how far we have come. But if were scoring too, then it could be dreamland. Christmas can't come soon enough for me. Just buy a striker please!!

Im disappointed that the moment that we have a set back that the knives come out, SaintMark, we got a draw with Man City who are the top side, so we competed against them ok, likewise at Arsenal where we were cheated out of a point.

Yes we lacked strikers yesterday, we had two of them on the injury list, on that form Chelsea wont lose many games this season, they destroyed United but they did not destroy us.

The problem isnt the owner, she has done what here Father said he would and that is make the club a business and self sufficient, the reason the ground hasnt been extended is not that the owner hasnt forked out, but that the supporters havent filled it consistently enough as has been sown in recent weeks.

This was the proper Chelsea of Mourinho's glory years (before the owner caved in to Costa and his pals)- park the bus, choke the life out of the other team and then strike when you get the opportunity. We never looked like a threat.

Vardy, Kante and Mahrez not the best players in the league last year?? And they only lost one in the summer. The difference between them and Saints is they sign really good players, who more importantly have grit and team spirit, and want to win with their team, not showcase themselves for transfer offers.

Saints now have the reputation that players can come here for a year and easily move wherever they want. That has to stop. You can say that we get loads of money-but if we only use it to develop more players for the team that gave us the money, is there really any point?

Nick, the expansion doesn't have to be huge-start with expensive seats or boxes. Those are the big revenue streams for clubs these days. Waiting for every single seat to be sold before expanding is pointless. That's like a car dealer selling plenty of expensive sports cars, but won't expand his inventory of them until he sells the old used clangers that have been sitting there for years.

P.S. Wanna sell out every seat every game? Get some exciting, high scoring players in (plus you make tons of money off their replica kits, etc.)

Sorry Nick, but as much as I respect your opinion I have not waited until we have a set back before commenting.

I have posted before that no other business that I am aware of sees a sensible way forward in consistently selling its best assets. The reason we lacked strikers yesterday was because we sold Pelle and Mane and the club made the choice not to replace them.Instead choosing to rely upon Austin and JRod both of which have injury problems and Redmond a winger who was not able to make the starting line up on a regular basis in a Norwich team that was relegated last term.

In regard to extending the ground, what comes first? Simply look at Sunderland who are by any standards a very poor team but still manage to get regular crowds in excess of 40000. We do not fill the ground for every game because a) it's too expensive to buy a season ticket and b) too difficult to walk up to the ground on match day and gain entry without being a member or having a purchase history and even then there is no reasonable guarantee of getting in.

It may not be what you want to hear but I am of the opinion that the owner has taken the club as far as she can using the current business model.If you are happy to tread water season after season then that is your privilege. I feel differently and I hope you will respect my view in the same way as I respect yours.

SaintMark, football is not like any other business, undoubtably if we hadnt have sold those players in 2014 we would not have enjoyed the success we have done since, unless you are Chelsea and Man City and have unlimited money, then you have to succeed by other means, that means selling your players when someone offers more to you than they are worth.

Mane and Pelle are put up as examples of selling your best players, but neither contributed as much as some would like to now say they did , Mane could have taken a dozen games off last season and we would not have missed him, but then again in another dozen games he was lethal, as for the rest average.

As I say the trick is selling on at the top price and hopefully replacing with as good as for less money and repeating the trick, Im sorry but we cannot compete in any other way, if anyone thinks we can achieve the success we have had and keep players then they are a little naive, the players want more money and more chance of honours which in turn brings more money, none of the players we sold left kicking and screaming, they went because they were being offered more than we could afford, Man Utd's shrt sponsorship deal alone is worth £70 million a season more than ours with Virgin, that should tell you why we have to sell and keep selling.

I do agree with you about the ground to a degree, but there has to be some degree of loyalty from the fans first, price is an issue yes and I have stated that the club need to reduce prices, however there were 10,000 spaces free for the Sunderland game at £12 a head, that is not tempting the club to attempt expansion.

I disagree with it being difficult to get a ticket, against Burnley and Swansea there were 3,000 empty seats, you could just walk up and buy a ticket, you dd not need a purchase history or a membership, we have a supposed fan base of 50,000 plus after the JPT final, why are so many not coming ?

Perhaps the owner has taken the club as far as it can go under the current business model, but the business model for the next level means having a 50,000 plus stadium full every week, a global fanbase and an owner banging in cash, that is the business model of the so called big six, we cannot match that no matter how much money we have an owner putting in, e can never compete on that business model so we have to compete by playing our own game and hope that perhaps like Leicester we suddenly get lucky.

I dont want to treat water season after season, but the fact is the last three seasons have been as good as any other in our top flight history, we are matching our best efforts from the past 131 years so we are not treading water, I now want to see us win a cup and another top ten finish, that is again over achieving in terms of what has gone before and what we can realistically do now

I think we are a good team, playing good football and we are strong defensively. Our problem is that we have been used to real quality up the top with Mane, Pelle (on his day) and even Lambert at his best. Sadly Austin lacks that touch of class and for me sticks out in our team as a step below what we have been used to. Having said that most PL teams are searching for that next level striker, look at WHU, Stoke etc. The one thing we do have is depth, however in Austin, JRod and Long we have strikers who belong in the lower half of the league if we are being honest. Elsewhere in defence and midfield we have players who could step up a level and mix it with the best in the PL, VVD, Fonte, Bertrand, Forster, Tadic, Romeu etc.

I think SaintMark hits it on the head with the line "the club made the choice not to replace them" with regard to Mane and Pelle. They both wanted to go and we got good money for them. That is fair enough and the whole 'feeder-club' thing is a not an easy problem to sort out (didn't apply to Pelle anyway) - BUT the mistake was to sell two players who on their day were 'game-changers' (and, yes, it wasn't always their day) and not replace them. You can say that Austin replaced Pelle and Redmond for Mane until you are blue in the face but it doesn't make it true. We would probably have lost yesterday anyway - but we looked poor going forward and Chelsea, however good they were, found it too easy to keep us out.