Chelsea’s disappointing season continued as they were beaten1-0 by a relegation-threatened Southampton at Stamford Bridge.
Southampton came into the game having sacked Nathan ‘the fittest human being in history’ Jones earlier in the week, and the Saints started the game extremely brightly and could have conceivably have been 2-0 up within the opening 15 minutes.
It was, however, a first half that was lacking in quality at times, but on the stroke of half-time, James Ward-Prowse would step up to fire the visitors ahead with yet another trademark free-kick from 25 yards.
Graham Potter made two changes at the interval, and his Chelsea came out much brighter in the second period, with the Blues creating a number of presentable chances.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles denied Kai Havertz with an excellent block, while Romain Perraud cleared one off the line to deny Raheem Sterling.
There would be 12 minutes of added time following a really nasty-looking head injury to Cesar Azpilicueta, and while they had their chances, they didn’t test Gavin Bazunu as their struggles in front of goal continue.
The result means Chelsea have now won just two of their last 14 Premier League games, scoring eight goals in the process, and speaking after the game, the increasingly under-pressure Graham Potter said he took responsibility for his side’s ‘below par’ performance during the first half.
“I thought first half we were below par,” he told Sky Sports. “We got punished at the end by James Ward-Prowse, he is elite at that. Our level of performance in the first half was not great. Credit to Southampton they mixed their game up well.
“Second half we pushed and pushed but we had goalscoring opportunities that we need to score. It is the story of where we are at at the moment.
“We should do better than we did in the first half and I take responsibility for that. In the second half we had some good chances to score and I can’t quite believe how we didn’t.”
The Blues boss said that he and the team are ‘very concerned’ for Azpilicueta following the terrible incident that saw him kicked in the head.
“He is conscious, he is in hospital,” he confirmed. “We are monitoring and are very concerned for him but he is in the best place for him with the hospital. It was a horrible incident.
“I think he was unconscious at one point so it was worrying for everyone. It was accidental but still it was a kick in the face and you can see how bad it was.”
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