It looked very good and great and fantastic and fabulous for about 10 minutes. Super pressing, super passing, and a super goal from Costa. Hazard made fools of Southampton's left side, laid the ball off to Ivanovic, whose perfect cross left Diego Costa with an easy finish. His 18th goal of the Premier League season puts him back into the lead in that race.
But Southampton's response has been good, and Chelsea have been unable to cope with the visitors at times. Courtois has made several good saves, while our midfield insists on giving the ball away and playing as a non-entity in general. Still, it needed a possibly dubious penalty from Tadic to get things level. Matic's desperate tackle through Sadio Mane, especially from referee Dean's angle, looked like a nailed-on penalty in real time. Unfortunately, Dean wasn't so keen to give a penalty in favor of Chelsea, when Ivanovic's Achilles was trod on a few minutes later.
And so, just like in the first meeting between these two teams this season, we stand 1-1 at the half. Chelsea did seem to settle a bit towards the end of the half, but we need to do better. Can we find a winner?