Frustration was the predominant emotion emanating from the Chelsea dressing room on Saturday evening at Stamford Bridge after the Blues twice let a lead slip to drop two points at home. For Kai Havertz, there was more reason than most to be feeling mixed emotions.
The German scored his first Premier League goal to make it 3-2 against Southampton with half an hour remaining, restoring our advantage following goals from Danny Ings and Che Adams, but it had been the 21-year-old caught in possession that led to the Saints halving the deficit at a crucial moment just before half-time and he could only watch as Jan Vestergaard snatched a late leveller in stoppage time.
After the game, Havertz summarised the post-match feeling in the camp and urged his team-mates to stick together in order to find solutions.
‘We’re very frustrated about the result,’ he said. ‘We had 42 good minutes in the first half but then I made a mistake and we conceded a goal, which changed the game a little bit.
‘We got it to 3-2 and then we have to take the result and get the win at home but we didn’t do it. Now we have to stick together and hopefully we can do better next time.’
Frank Lampard’s side conceded three goals for the second time this season and Havertz called for collective responsibility in addressing those issues, though he also conceded that more time together on the training pitch would be essential for working on that.
‘We have to take responsibility for that,’ the midfielder continued. ‘We have 11 players on the pitch and everybody has to work hard so we don’t concede goals like this.
‘It’s not always one person who makes the mistake so we have to look at our mistakes and try to solve the problems.
‘We only have one or two days, only one training session with all the players together so of course it’s different but every team has to deal with it, not only us. We didn’t have a lot of preparation so now we have to work hard and stay together to do better next time.’
For a while, it looked like Havertz’s maiden strike in English league football would be enough to secure the points for Lampard’s men but the concession of a third goal late in added time meant it was a disappointing day all round.
‘It would have been great if it was the winner,’ he added. ‘Of course, I’m happy with that but very frustrated too about the result. We have to take these three points at home and we can do that so it’s a bad day for us.’