Chelsea Home Lost 1 -5. We do good light shows though!
It wouldn’t matter much if certain members of the Southampton squad were unavailable as there would be someone just as good/mediocre in reserve, but we’d always miss the likes of Ramsdale (plus McCarthy). Taylor-Bellis, Bednarek, Downes and Dibling, never mind to face in form Chelsea;without Lallana, Ugochukwu and Onuachu as well (and Stewart and Larios, of course) didn’t help. Wood was promoted for a Premier League debut while we even had to resort to Cornet on the bench, where he was accompanied by teenager O’Brien-Whitmarsh who had had about 60 seconds pitch time in the Carabao Cup. Aribo took over the Downes role, but with more licence to get forward and he maybe should have scored in the opening minutes but was denied by Jørgensen, starting in the visitors’ PL goal for the first time. Instead it was Chelsea who took an early lead, Disasi heading in a near post corner that really should have been cleared. Saints came back, though, and Aribo did get on the scoresheet from an assist by Walker-Peters. The Brighton game wasn’t error-free at the back but there weren’t that many – we were due a mistake and Lumley provided it in a familiar manner when an attempt to play out of defence couldn’t find Walker-Peters and the keeper was in no position to prevent Nkunku from eventually scoring. The gap widened to two goals when the impressive Madueke found the net, Lumley possibly to blame as it looked ‘soft.’ A corner brought hope for Southampton but instead it was more dismay as Stephens couldn’t resist the chance to have a tug at some of Cucurella’s many curly locks, and once it was spotted by VAR, that was the end of him and any chance of rescuing something from the game. Also in the first half, wrong-footed Lumley had touched Palmer’s shot against the post and Adarabioyo headed against the bar, then after the break, the frame of the goal (and various parts of Lumley) kept Chelsea out while Félix missed the simplest of headed chances. For their part, Saints produced a nice move that saw Fernades foiled by Jørgensen’s foot but it was no surprise when Palmer finally extended the lead on 76 minutes when he denied Nkunku, whose effort was probably going in anyway. It finally became five shortly before the end of the 90 when Sanchez shot too powerfully for Lumley at the near post – not great goalkeeping but he’s not the first of our stoppers who’ve shown a weakness in that area. There was still time for Chelsea to hit the post again, but I don’t suppose they were too disappointed.
Three LSSC Man of the Match candidates to choose from:
7. Joe Aribo. His early miss may well have fallen foul of a VAR offside review anyway.
10. Mateus Fernandes, trying to make something out of 45% possession (mostly in the wrong half, of course).
19. Cameron Archer, another willing runner in difficult circumstances.
Become a Member
Become a member of London Saints from as little as £5.