Southampton were given New Year’s Day off by the fixture list and the broadcasters, so earlier tonight we played our first game of 2019 and made the trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea.
Following the arrival of the Austrian gaffer, we had an initial lift with a couple of victories but we have slipped to back to back defeats and tonight we were looking to avoid making it three losses on the spin and that was going to be difficult with Chelsea in decent form themselves.
The player stepped up though and in taking our first clean sheet in eleven Premier League matches we took a very creditable point with a strong defensive showing on the night, especially as Chelsea had over 70% of the ball.
It wasn’t pretty but it was necessary and could be a massive turning point for us as we look for an unbeaten run at least to ease the pressure.
Speaking to the BBC following the fulltime whistle in the game, Hasenhuttl said of the match.
“I think it was very hard work against the ball. The guys were brave, sometimes pressing high, sometimes deeper. We didn’t give so many chances away, they have fantastic quality and to defend every attack is not easy, but with our mentality we deserved a point. In the last 30 minutes you feel tired, we had to close the gaps and if you have guy like Eden Hazard dribbling at you, you need a lot of players near him to stop him. We made the right decision to change so many players against Manchester City to keep them fresh for today. I don’t want to say we gave the Manchester City game away but we had more chances today. It was an amazing fight we gave.”
Heading home with a point! 👊
Thank you for your fantastic support at Stamford Bridge tonight, #SaintsFC fans! 👏 pic.twitter.com/abT0JAhCTJ
— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) January 2, 2019