Chelsea ease to a victory that tells us nothing because Southampton are so historically bad

Liverpool, Wolves, Crystal Palace, Tottenham, Aston Villa, West Ham, Fulham, Leicester, Man City, Everton, Arsenal.

Those are the 11 lucky Premier League teams who still get to play Southampton again this season. With the race for Europe a particularly tight one this season and the Saints so wretchedly overpowered by all but their fellow relegation stragglers, it’s becoming a genuinely notable consideration in any calculations.

Do they still have a game against Southampton? It’s bad news for Newcastle, Forest, Bournemouth and now Chelsea, who no longer have those three rock-solid bankable future points to rely on.

When Southampton won at Ipswich we will admit to disappointment on two counts. First it significantly dented the chance of a meaningful relegation fight and second it appeared to put paid to any hopes of Southampton’s bid to overhaul Derby’s infamous 11-point season going down to the wire.

We’re no longer so sure about the second bit after watching this pitiful effort at Chelsea. Looking again at that list of remaining fixtures, you do wonder where the three points they need might come from.

The banter answer is obviously Tottenham, but even they appear to have abandoned the very gravest of nonsense for the time being, and not beating Southampton is currently an act of the very gravest nonsense.

Spurs’ most wretched run of a wretched season featured one win in 11 Premier League games. That one win was, of course, at Southampton, and it was 5-0 by half-time.

It really is only that trip to Leicester where you might now reasonably expect Southampton to get anything at all, and that’s not until May and a time when both are likely to already be mathematically consigned to next season’s Championship.

Derby, for what it’s worth, also had nine points after 27 games when setting a record that appeared unbeatable.

There was mitigation for Southampton for tonight’s specific horror show with a defence that barely even qualified as makeshift.

But the sheer scale of the disorganisation was an embarrassment and this cannot be considered in any way a one-off. They have now scored six goals fewer than anyone else and conceded six goals more than anyone else this season.

That threadbare defence could easily get close to 100 goals conceded now if a couple of the better teams they still have to play are in unforgiving mood. It’s a long few months ahead.

As for Chelsea, this was an enormously welcome evening during what has been a deeply difficult period. How much it really means, who knows. It’s no criticism of Chelsea to observe that it’s impossible to have any idea whether any meaningful conclusions can be drawn.

There were impressive performances from Christopher Nkunku and Pedro Neto in the Chelsea attack, while young substitute Tyrique George’s lively cameo from the bench was the sort of effervescent performance from a youngster that always warms the cockles of any fan.

If there was a concern for Chelsea on a night of overwhelming positives it came from another sketchy Cole Palmer performance.

That’s now six straight Premier League games with neither a goal nor assist for Palmer, and he looked short of confidence here. Passes he would have made in his sleep a few months ago were carelessly overhit, he shot early in the game when he should have passed to give Nkunku a tap-in and generally appears out of sorts and unsure quite how to remedy this.

It never, ever looked like it was something that would cost Chelsea tonight, but it has previously and could do so again in what promises to be an ebb-and-flow battle for European places.

This was a win that lifts Chelsea back to fourth, while the margin of it may yet also prove significant. Chelsea have, for now, the best goal difference of anyone outside the top two. It is already worth an extra point in the final reckoning against Villa at the very least, with Unai Emery’s side only four points behind Chelsea but now 21 goals worse off after big swings from both their games tonight.

Chelsea did what was necessary here and did it with great ease and minimal fuss. It was a thoroughly satisfactory night’s work, even if they know they could be in sixth place again this time tomorrow, and the fact it is entirely impossible to know what if anything it tells us about Chelsea’s current level of performance or confidence or readiness for the months ahead is not remotely their fault or concern.

For Southampton, just 11 more games to get through before this whole sorry ordeal is over. Derby will be watching closely even if nobody else is.

READ NEXT: Premier League winners and losers: Liverpool (and Newcastle, and Villa, and Spurs) enjoy