London // Chelsea ended with a mass of pressure, raining in shots on Fraser Forster’s goal.
Their fans could probably go home believing they had been unfortunate not to win and, up to a point, probably be right.
Yet for almost half the game, from taking an 11th-minute lead until the moment about 10 minutes into the second half when the late surge began, Chelsea were distinctly second-best, looking weary and listless.
If Manchester City had any consistency, if Arsenal had made a better start, there would be a sense the title race was alive again. As it is, Chelsea, disappointed as they were by the result, ended the weekend with a larger lead than they began it.
“One perspective is a draw at home to Southampton is not a good result,” Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said. “I have this feeling. But the second perspective is we had a lead of five points and now we have a lead of six points with one game less to play. I’m not jumping with happiness and I’m not crying with disappointment.”
As if issuing a challenge to the players who so disappointed against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, Mourinho made only one change, Willian coming in for Ramires.
When his side took an the lead, Diego Costa heading in a Branislav Ivanovic cross, the move seemed justified. The stadium as a whole almost perceptibly relaxed, but as on Wednesday, as soon as the game seemed won, Chelsea looked vulnerable.
There was a warning as Dusan Tadic pulled back a cross for Sadio Mane, whose shot from the edge of the box was saved by Thibaut Courtois, even before the equaliser arrived from a Tadic penalty after Mane was tripped by Nemanja Matic.
Mourinho, after making a point of saying his “opinion is not important”, said the incident was “a penalty that is not a penalty”. Asked about what may have been a penalty when Tadic trod on Ivanovic’s heel, Mourinho asked his press officer to “control” him.
“We started well,” Mourinho said. “I think the penalty changed the rest of the first half. The players felt it and we stopped playing, made a few mistakes and they scared us with a couple of dangerous counter-attacks.”
Southampton unsettled Chelsea on the break, the pace of Mane and Shane Long, preferred to the slower Graziano Pelle, repeatedly threatening to get in behind John Terry and Gary Cahill. Matic, who has looked the most tired of a fatigued side, was so out of sorts he was taken off eight minutes into the second half after a foul on Mane that could have earned him a second yellow.
“From the moment Ramires came on, we killed their counter-attack and after that we had complete control of the game,” Mourinho said.
His arrival signalled an improvement in Chelsea’s play as they began to press with far more intensity. Costa turned a Willian shot against the post, Fraser Forster made a string of fine saves and then, in injury time, Loic Remy and John Terry had shots blocked in the six-yard box.
It was frantic and lacking in finesse, but the final half-hour showed a side with the will to fight. There was desire and determination and, against sides less well-organised than Southampton, that may be enough. Given the deficiencies of the opposition, even a draw may be enough.
This may be a wobble, but it will take more than that to create a title race.
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