It was another Saturday and another injury, but Saints reshuffled yet again, dug in, had the luck for once and got a draw that felt like a win to end a awful losing streak, hopefully we have turned the corner and can start to win games again.
Saints fans where dismayed to hear that Stuart Armstrong was out for this game and this meant that Saints were putting out 10 of the only 12 experienced outfield players that were actually fit, some supporters complain that of late Ralph Hasenhuttl has had no plan B, it is hard to even have a plan A let alone B at the moment when every week seems to bring yet another injury.
One thing no one can moan about is the team spirit that carried Saints through this match.
This was not a pretty game to watch, but being on the back foot for most of the time suited Saints and for all their possession the visitors didn't get a decent shot in on goal that would have counted in all the game, yes Alex McCarthy made a decent save in the first half to tip an effort round the post for a corner, but such is the absurdity of the VAR system although if it had gone in the goal would have been ruled offside, as it had been saved it was still a corner.
Chelsea were down our throats from the first minute and looked set to overwhelm us, it was not pretty to watch, but as the minutes ticked on, the realisation was that this was a Saints side on the back foot, but it was set up well and fighting tooth and nail, the Blues had 75% of the ball, but they could not trouble Alex McCarthy such was the resolute resistance.
As the half hour mark came and went it seemed that the only was we were going to get into the Northam End half was when we changed ends at half time, but then suddenly came a magical moment, Nathan Redmond who has come under fire of late got the ball carried it and then laid a slide rule pass for Takumi Minamino, who ran on dummied the keeper not once and twice and nonchantly put the ball in the back of the net.
Totally against the run of play but we had something to hold on to now and again Chelsea blustered but could not get a decent chance.
In the second half Chelsea came out fired up, but in a first 10 minutes that was almost a carbon copy of the Wolves game, we held strong and then gave a way a silly penalty, Danny Ings making a badly mistimed tackle that was a nailed on penalty.
Surely the floodgates would open now but the defence held strong, was it a back three, was it a back four, truth is it was both, when we went forward we reverted to a back three, when we were defending Ryan Bertrand dropped back into left back and it was a back four, Ralph Hasenhuttl has done this before, but it is only now he has the players to implement it properly.
Again Chelsea came at us in waves, but the only other real chance of note in the game was when Jannik Vestergaard hit the bar with a looping header at the other end.
This was a team effort, ironically and no one can say this very often, Danny Ings was the worst player on the park, isolated for long periods with even James Ward Prowse unable to get any sort of passing going as Chelsea pressed and pressed.
The King Of The Scummers worked hard, but it was all about hard work and he saw little of the ball in a position that he could influence the game.
Around him everyone was working just as hard, in the centre Oriol Romeu and James Ward Prowse rolled up their sleeves and grafted, Moussa Djenepo had his best game in a Saints short, yes his positional sense is not great, but he ran and battled and got battered for his trouble, but he just kept getting up and going again, Chelsea must have wondered what they had to do to stop him.
At the back the central trio were magnificent and at the heart was Mohammed Salisu, in many respects he was a strange choice from Glenn Hoddle on the TV for the man of the match, but our former manager likes to get technical on these things and he could see that Salisu was reading the game and cutting out balls before they could put us in any danger. they say if you don't notice a referee then he is having a good game, this describes Salisu's performance, he wasn't throwing himself in the way of crosses like Jan Bednarek, he was just calmly and coolly getting on with things, h looked like he had been playing Premier League football all his life.
All the stats belonged to Chelsea, apart from the one that matters and that is the scoreline, as I said at the beginning, this was only a draw, but it felt like a win, hopefully we have turned a corner and things can now only get better.
Now hopefully we can get back to winning ways, although personally if someone told me we would only win 5 more games this season I would be quite happy, as long as 3 of those games were in the FA Cup.
There is still a lot to play for, hopefully we will get players back from injury and then we can show what we can do again, as we did in the first half of the season.