Southampton’s mixed start to life in the Premier League campaign of 2019/20 continued in Saturday’s hosting of Chelsea.
Welcoming them to St Mary’s Stadium, we always knew it would be a tough game and we unfortunately fell to a 4-1 defeat on the day, but although we are now eight games into the season, I think most fans have seen enough already to know that we should be safe this year – especially as our summer signings continue to adjust and settle in, and arguably haven’t yet hit top form.
That won’t change the feelings today though, as we quickly fell two goals down but Danny Ings’ effort on the half hour mark simply became a consolation for us and in many ways, it was our own errors that caused our downfall.
Manager Ralph Hasenhuttl will be disappointed with that, but he knows we are capable of better – it’s just ensuring we play better in the future.
Speaking to the BBC following the game, the Austrian said of the day.
“We started well but to be honest we are far away from our best, and against the best opponents you only have the chance to take something if you play your best. We were too slow in our minds, too slow on the ball. They showed us every weakness we had and we have a lot of them at the moment. When they build up from behind and score we must say ‘OK’, but to give the chances we did against such an opponent, you cannot handle it. That was the reason we were 3-1 down in the first half. Second half was a little better but not really, we never had the chance to come back. We know it is a tough situation, but we must work really hard and that’s what we will do.”
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