Bree: A tough one to take
Defender James Bree was left to reflect on a bright start that didn’t yield an advantage, as Chelsea ran out comfortable victory against 10-man Saints.
The hosts began on the front foot under the lights at St Mary’s, but it was Axel Disasi who opened the scoring inside 10 minutes from a corner.
Russell Martin’s side were rewarded for their early endeavours when Joe Aribo levelled it up, before the first half fell away as Christoper Nkunku and Noni Madueke gave the Blues a buffer before Jack Stephens was shown a straight red card for an off-the-ball altercation with Marc Cucurella.
Facing an uphill battle after the break, Cole Palmer and Jadon Sancho rounded up Chelsea’s scoring to five to leave the hosts comfortably beaten.
“It's a tough night for the boys,” Bree began. “It’s hard to say because I feel like we say it all the time, but I think we started so well. And obviously a sloppy goal for the first one to give them an easy set piece and then got ourselves back into the game and then again, caused ourselves some problems.
“I felt like we were really in the game to be fair. I felt like we were keeping the ball well, playing through the lines, creating chances. Obviously when we went down to 10 men it makes the games a lot harder than sticking in there and picking our chances when to go forward and stuff, so it’s obviously a disappointing night for us.
With Bree making his first league start of the campaign, there were milestone nights for Nathan Wood and Ronnie Edwards who made their Premier League debuts, despite the night being marred by the result.
“I think myself and Woody and speaking to Woody and Ronnie, I think everyone trains so hard all the time and is just dying to be on the pitch and wants to play for the club.
“I think Woody did really, really well today. Woody obviously played the full 90 and Ronnie when he came on it’s big for those two, and like I said, for myself it’s good to get a start and to play but when it's a result like that it takes the shine off of it.”
