When your captain gets a red card for hair-pulling, like Southampton’s Jack Stephens was here for pulling Marc Cucurella’s curls, you know your capacity for implosion is high.

Southampton have beaten themselves, from that sending off to the clumsy way in which the Premier League bottom team kept conceding goals against Chelsea. Take Christopher Nkunku’s goal, for example, which came after Noni Madueke stole the ball following a pass from Joe Lumley.

Lumley is the Saints’ fourth-choice goalkeeper with Aaron Ramsdale and Gavin Bazunu both injured and Alex McCarthy still recovering from a knee injury, but he has been told to do his best to show someone can play out of defence . Suffice it to say that was a mistake as Madueke won the ball, set up Nkunku and Chelsea secured a lead they would never lose again.

Even the St. Mary’s DJ played The Kooks’ “Naive” at halftime, as if trying to prove a point. Worse still, it was Stephens’ second red card of the season and will see him miss four games this time, one more than the usual three, as Southampton face a tough winter.

Chelsea fans viewed this as a big party. At the end they chanted Enzo Maresca’s name repeatedly, and then there was another chant: “We have our Chelsea back.”

Maresca said: “It was a very good feeling.” We work every day to make her happy. You can see that Chelsea are back and that is an important thing.”

Chelsea continued their climb up the Premier League table with a five-star performance against Southampton

Cole Palmer scored Chelsea’s fourth goal to secure a comfortable victory for the Blues on the south coast

Jack Stephens was sent off for pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair late in the second half

Maresca made seven changes for this trip, including giving Filip Jorgensen, the 22-year-old summer signing who made the odd super save, his first Premier League start.

It took Chelsea seven minutes to take the lead when Axel Disasi easily nodded in Enzo Fernandez’s corner but Lumley was well away. It was 1-1 after 11 minutes when Fernandez was weakly redirected in the penalty area by Kyle Walker-Peters, who cut the ball back for Joe Aribo to punch in.

Chelsea regained the lead in the 17th minute when Lumley played into their pressing trap and Madueke stole the ball before assisting Nkunku.

Tosin Adarabioyo almost opened the scoring – he hit the woodwork twice here – but it was 3-1 after 34 minutes when Madueke charged at Ryan Manning and gave him enough space to find the far corner with a simple dash to the left .

Southampton’s evening got even worse before half-time when the cameras caught Stephens grabbing a handful of Cucurella’s hair. Referee Tony Harrington gave the ball a straight red after it was sent to his pitchside monitor by VAR Matt Donohue.

Madueke scored one goal but could and should have scored five. Instead, it was Palmer who scored Chelsea’s fourth goal with a tap-in in the 76th minute. Substitute Jadon Sancho then scored the fifth goal after 87 minutes as St Mary’s embarrassingly emptied out.