Southampton vs Chelsea: Saints & Sinners

Oh Hello 2014

Fernando Torres' New Year's resolution: score more goals.

With so much being made of no Chelsea striker scoring away from home in the Premier League for the whole of 2013, you had to have known that Torres was going to score on New Years Day. Had to. OK, even if you didn't know, I knew for you. Oh, I knew ....

Fernando Torres carried on from his brief cameo against his former shell suit sporting club like a man possessed. Not one to sit back and wait for service, Torres only went and dribbled circles around Southampton's midfield. Of course that did him and Chelsea no good in the first half, but it sure did look impressive.

Chelsea gave Southampton an hour to remember to the beginning of the season when they had the best defence around. Like a late holiday gift. And then it all went a bit t*ts up for the Saints. As previously mentioned as many times as I could fit in this space, Fernando Torres opened up the scoring. 2014 could be the year of Chelsea's strikers scoring away … 2013 was not their year.

How did this once formidable defence become unhinged? The genius of the substitutions changed the game. Very unlike under the previous reign where substitutions were made from the flip of a coin. And although the result was very much the right one, replacing Mata and Schürrle for Oscar and Wilian (who apparently hates Tottenham) did bring about a bit of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

THE GOOD: self explanatory, but it does allow me to mention one more time that Fernando Torres did score his first goal of 2014. But he wasn't the only one, the two men that came on, Oscar and Willian, only went and scored one each as well. Oscar also snagged himself an assist and made more tackles than anyone else on the pitch in his 40 minutes. Let's just leave his performance for a moment.

THE BAD: Juan Mata coming off after just 52 minutes -- and showing he's human. Mata, for the first time, appeared dismayed by his substitution. And with good reason. He'd put in a good shift and was looking effective. With the sub coming so quickly after the half, you'd think he would have found out at the break it was a possibility, but by his reaction, he may have been left in the dark yet again. In the end, it worked out for Chelsea, but was difficult to see the disappointment in that little bearded face.

THE UGLY: let's take a moment to revisit Oscar's performance. *That* dive. It certainly wasn't a

Hands suitably dressed for any contact with the ground

winning performance from Oscar in those first free moments. For all the talent that Oscar possesses (and went on to show in the rest of the game), it was a ridiculous choice on his part. Why Oscar opted to look for a penalty rather than just go for goal is beyond the realm of comprehension. It won't win him any points after Mourinho has been more than a little outspoken about the likes of Luis Suárez getting as much grass on his kit as possible. Hopefully we won't see more of that from the Brazilian.

As a bonus point that didn't fit into that tidy little movie theme - Petr Cech has only gone and equalled Peter Bonetti's record of 208 clean sheets. As you do. The re-introduction of Terry as one of the few unchanging figures in Mourinho's lineup certainly hasn't hurt big Pete reach that record.

New Year's Day done and dusted. Mourinho clearly kept the players under lock and key with no one sneaking off to Arsenal's New Year's Eve party to see off a difficult opponent and remain just a couple of points off of top.

Derby County and the FA Cup await

jb x