Southampton 1 Chelsea 3: It will annoy Chelsea to be without the banned Jose Mourinho for the Champions League game against Bayern Munich, but Saturday's victory was a happy flashback to life before the Portuguese. As a fan remarked on the way back to London, nine of the line-up were already at the club before the manager got there.

Of the others, Petr Cech had almost nothing to do at St Mary's, while Mateja Kezman did almost nothing. Mourinho will be worthy of all the tributes laid at his feet when Chelsea, who now require a maximum of three victories, are confirmed as Premiership champions, but he did inherit a squad of many strengths.

As Mourinho showed on Saturday, however, he will still exert influence just by selecting his side. His opposite number at Southampton was crestfallen at the sight of the team sheet.

"Ricardo Carvalho is a fantastic player," explained Harry Redknapp, "but he's only 6ft and I was looking for Peter Crouch to be playing on to him all game. But then he brought in Huth, who is 6ft 4in. That was a clever move."

Calling up a strapping German to help counter a 6ft 7in Englishman hardly counts as a tactical brainwave, but another manager might have hesitated to drop a footballer of Carvalho's calibre.

Chelsea were prudent throughout a drowsy fixture. They applied the anaesthetic and Southampton scarcely felt a thing as three points were extracted from them. There might have been a twinge in the 22nd minute, but it was caused by the referee Mark Halsey, who awarded a foul against Andreas Jakobsson even though Kezman appeared to be backing into the defender. Frank Lampard's free-kick from 30 yards found the net thanks to a large deflection off Rory Delap.

Glen Johnson, with a run past four men and a good cut-back, set up Eidur Gudjohnsen to add to the lead before the interval. In the 83rd minute, the Icelander scored again, after weaving in and out of a lovely move from left to right and then taking the through ball from substitute Didier Drogba to finish with an exact shot.

Southampton generally depended on the rudimentary threat posed by Delap's long throw-ins, but, at their goal, they did demonstrate some of the technique that could keep them above the relegation zone. After 69 minutes substitute Kevin Phillips peeled away and found space as, following a short corner, Paul Telfer sent over a low cross. The finish was impeccable.