Mason Mount and Timo Werner double up as Chelsea put six past Southampton

Whether it was a Fortnum & Mason selection box or a stash of Freddos we may never know but after Thomas Tuchel said he munched his way through copious amounts of chocolate to ease the pain of reliving Chelsea’s defeat to Real Madrid in midweek, his team displayed a ravenous appetite to make amends by bludgeoning Southampton. Chelsea picked their opponents apart, Timo Werner and Mason Mount scoring twice and Marcos Alonso and Kai Havertz also striking inside 54 minutes. Werner celebrated his first league goals since October but when you consider he also struck the woodwork twice, as well as Fraser Forster’s inspired goalkeeping, it was a miracle Chelsea only finished with six goals. As reactions go, this was rather comprehensive.

It almost felt satirical when at half-time the stadium announcer, presumably reading off a script, offered a warm welcome to a family visiting St Mary’s. Chelsea would have had five goals at the break had Forster not clambered low to his right to somehow claw a Ruben Loftus-Cheek header, diverted by Mohammed Salisu’s outstretched leg, to safety. A minute earlier, a Mount shot deflected off Jan Bednarek and dropped nervously wide. By then a rocked Ralph Hasenhüttl, hands on hips on the edge of the technical area, had already taken unprecedented action, replacing the midfielder Oriol Romeu with Yan Valery and shifting to a three-man defence, presumably in the name of damage limitation. Those 9-0 shellackings, here to Leicester in 2019 and at Manchester United in 2021, must have been lingering in the back of his mind.

The midfielder Ibrahima Diallo replaced the striker Adam Armstrong for the second half but changes in shape and personnel made little difference. With 54 minutes gone Chelsea, all in