Blues cruise sinks Saints

THOMAS Tuchel looked like he had a fun day at work for the first time in a little while as his Chelsea side thumped Southampton 6-0 at St Mary’s.

It could have been 12, but after the week Chelsea have had, and in fact longer with all their other business, this will do nicely.

It was a barrel of goals shared widely – Marcos Alonso and Kai Havertz had one each. Mason Mount got two. So did Timo Werner and Tuchel was particularly pleased with the German striker whose Chelsea career has never looked entirely convincing.

‘Everything was there for him to deliver and to make a statement and to show he’s still an important player of this group and that’s exactly what he did,’ Tuchel said.

Meanwhile, given the shambles he inherited, taking Tottenham into the Champions League would have to rival Serie A and Premier League titles in the list of Antonio Conte’s achievements and he moved closer to that with a 4-0 win over Aston Villa.

Son Heung-min scored a hat-trick for Spurs with Dejan Kulusevski also on target.

And Leeds moved nine points clear of the drop zone with a 3-0 victory over Watford courtesy of goals from Raphinha, Jack Harrison and Rodrigo Moreno.