Long punished for their own success, sleepwalking Southampton are now staring into the relegation abyss

After defeat to Chelsea, Southampton now have five games left to save their Premier League status, and even then, their fate is not entirely in their hands

The collapse against Chelsea now means safety is out of Southampton's hands (Getty)

It’s always fine, until it isn’t. Here, things were going fine for Southampton until the 70th minute. They were 2-0 up against champions Chelsea, displaying the sort of aggression and incision that had been so lacking under Mauricio Pellegrino earlier in the season.

Within eight minutes, they were hurtling towards a shock 3-2 defeat. Within 20 minutes, Mark Hughes was throwing all four of his strikers onto the pitch. Within a few hours, Crystal Palace and Swansea had both picked up points, leaving Southampton five points adrift of safety. For the first time, relegation looks more likely than survival.

Life comes at you fast. And if this latest blow has left them dazed and confused, then you suspect Southampton will quickly need to come to their senses. They travel to Leicester on Thursday, and by the time they face Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final on Sunday, they could be even further behind. Southampton have five games left to save their Premier League status, and even then, their fate is not entirely in their hands.

Giroud came on to pull one back for Chelsea (Getty)

It is a plight that seems almost to have crept up on them, given that for all their difficulties this season, Southampton still don’t quite feel like a club heading for the Championship. The Expected Goals table has them ninth. They have enjoyed more possession and created more chances than any team outside the top six. They are financially secure, boast an academy that produces not just competent footballers but competent people, and their recruitment strategy has been the envy of other Premier League clubs for years. It’s always fine, until it isn’t.

Perhaps, just as Southampton failed to recognise the potential for a Chelsea comeback until it was already upon them, their relative stability as a club has blinded them to the imminent threat of relegation. “As a group of players, it's been naive,” Charlie Austin complained. “Thinking we can just turn up and it will happen, we'll be OK, we've got the players to get out of this mess. And as the weeks have gone by, we haven’t made any progress.” Now, finally, Southampton may be waking up to their predicament.

There are mitigating factors, of course. The Virgil van Dijk circus proved not only a distraction, but a deprivation: shorn of his calmness and class, Southampton have made more defensive errors this season than any team bar Arsenal. Injury deprived them of their top scorer Austin for three months, and the fact that he is still the top scorer with seven underlines Southampton’s bluntness at that end of the pitch.

Giroud's second goal completed a stunning turnaround (Getty)

And on a macro level, it is impossible to ignore the disruptive effect of losing virtually an entire team of world-class players over the last few summers: not merely the interminable hassle of sourcing and signing replacements, but the deleterious effect on those left behind. Southampton, in a sense, have been punished for their own successes, cannibalised by better-resourced, less efficient clubs, condemned to a fate of permanent renovation.

Southampton are staring at relegation (Southampton FC)

None of which will make life in the Championship any more bearable, of course. And in a way, Southampton have only themselves to blame: only West Brom have a worse record from winning positions this season, a statistic that strongly suggests that Southampton would have no trouble staying in the division, if only they were able to close out matches. Between the fateful 70th and 80th minutes, the entire team completed just eight passes.

And so instead of a morale-boosting win, this was another bitter lesson in game management, in spotting danger, in playing for points rather than process. Problem is, Southampton are quickly running out of time to learn it.