Chelsea keeps up title pace with comfortable 4-2 win over Southampton

Briefly, things got a bit nervy for Chelsea.

For a short while, after Southampton equalized in the midst of a strong first half, it didn’t seem inconceivable that the visiting Saints might steal a point, or even three, from the longtime league leaders. And that might have been fairly disastrous for the Blues, who have lost two of their last four Premier League matches and let a rampant Tottenham Hotspur back into a title race that seemed to have been locked up weeks earlier.

But after Eden Hazard’s early goal was undone by Oriol Romeu, a Gary Cahill goal seconds before halftime set things right. And just after halftime, Diego Costa ended his seven-game scoring drought with what would be the game-winner. In the 89th minute, the Spanish-Brazilian got another before Ryan Bertrand’s consolation goal reduced it to a 4-2 win for the Blues.

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So it was a comfortable night in the end.

And one that puts the onus back on the chasing Spurs to beat Crystal Palace away on Wednesday to narrow the gap back to four points – with five games remaining thereafter.

Just five minutes in, Cesc Fabregas hit a long through ball for Costa, who held it up until Hazard ran into a pocket between a handful of errant Saints defenders and pinged the cutback into the net.

But in the 24th minute, Manolo Gabbiadini played an unconvincingly defended corner back across and it was tapped in by the unmarked Romeu – a former Chelsea prospect, no less – who had been misplaced in the melee.

Cahill would come to the rescue, however. In the first-half injury time, N’Golo Kante served a ball back into the box. It was headed across by Marcos Alonso. Cahill, just back from an illness so serious he was hospitalized, slipped in front of his own teammate, Costa (who was attempting a bicycle kick) with a header that also eluded goalkeeper Fraser Forster.

And in the 54th minute, Fabregas got the ball in the box from a short corner and floated it onto the head of Costa, who nodded it past Forster all too simply.

That made Costa the second-fastest Chelsea player to reach 50 Premier League goals, by one game. He would have been the fastest, of course, had his drought not gone on for five league games.

Southampton more or less capitulated, leaving Chelsea to attempt to work on its goal difference for the remainder of the game. But Kante was denied well by Forster, and Pedro pulled his shot from the edge of the box wide of the near post.

Finally, in the 89th minute, Costa got a second on a nice give-and-go with Hazard in the box, whereupon the striker bagged his 19th league goal of the season to tie him with Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez for third in the Premier League scoring table.

In the 94th minute, Bertrand, another once-promising Chelsea youth player, got another point on the board for the visitors with a well-placed header, but it mattered little.

Because things had been so cushy for Chelsea that manager Antonio Conte could even afford a sentimental gesture for club icon John Terry in the 85th minute. Conte brought on the 36-year-old captain after it was announced last week that Terry won’t be returning next season, to add to the six minutes the defender had featured so far this season.

The pressure is back on Tottenham, which has the much harder schedule to end its league season.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is a soccer columnist for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter @LeanderAlphabet.