With next season’s Champions League qualification likely but by no means assured, even with a Champions League second-leg and an FA Cup semi-final on the way, Tuchel’s space for wriggle room was almost non-existent. Moreover, Cesar Azpilicueta was absent after testing positive for Covid, although Romelu Lukaku missing training through injury 

spared the head coach from a selection dilemma. Jorginho, Reece James and Christian Pulisic found themselves defenestrated to the bench after the Champions League defeat to Real Madrid.

Bobbling around harmlessly in mid-table despite taking no points in March, Southampton were without Armando Broja, ineligible against his parent club, but they were without inspiration and commitment too. They have now taken one point from five games and, for them, the end of the season cannot come quick enough.

“We looked completely helpless, we lacked everything we were the worst team by far,” lamented Ralph Hasenhuttl, the Southampton manager. “To win against teams on the level of European champions, we have to be hot and they have to lack commitment. That didn’t happen. We lost too many balls and every time we did, they launched a super counter attack. When you play like we did against European Champions, a result like today is no surprise, but it’s hard to take.”

As Hasenhuttl accepted, this 6-0 home defeat was this season’s seismic, values-shifting equivalent of 9-0 hidings against Manchester United and Leicester City.

“It will ring alarm bells,” the Austrian accepted. “We need to stop losing balls, we have to get back to a better way of defending. One thing I can promise you is that next weekend, we will not defend like this.”

Following Thursday’s clear the air meeting between players and management Chelsea were out of the traps like under-fed greyhounds. Werner shook the woodwork twice in the opening six minutes, first charging through with a pace familiar to fans of RB Leipzig, before firing against the post. Then he headed Loftus-Cheek’s cute cross against the bar.

In the seventh, they scored. Marcos Alonso finished it, but it was really all about Mason Mount. Loftus-Cheek crossed from the right again. In one glistening moment, Mount chested the ball and hooked it over his own shoulder into the path of Alonso, who walloped his first league goal since August under Forster.