Southampton are still without a win in their 2021/22 Premier League campaign after falling to a 3-1 defeat against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

It was a lively affair in west London with goals from Trevor Chalobah, Timo Werner and Ben Chilwell securing the three points for the home side.

It was also a rather mixed day for Southampton captain James Ward-Prowse who managed to score from the penalty spot before picking up a red card in the second half.

Whilst a number of Southampton players failed to step up to the mark against Thomas Tuchel's side, we feel that Nathan Tella, in particular, let Saints manager Ralph Hasenhuttl down.

Since making his senior debut for Southampton back in June 2020, Tella has gone on to make 27 appearances for the Saints in which he has managed to score two goals and provide three assists along the way (per Transfermarkt).

Prior to the Chelsea clash, Tella's only appearance in the Premier League came in Southampton's opening game of the season where he played ten minutes of their 3-1 defeat against Everton.

After being given the chance to start against Chelsea to see if he could help the Saints pick up their first win of the season, it's safe to say Tella could have done better during a rare start.

The youngster was one of a few players to actually get at his man and look to make things happen, but ultimately, he was lapse in possession and lacking in his end product as the Saints rarely troubled Chelsea.

Before being taken off in the 73rd minute and replaced by Moussa Djenepo, the 22-year-old winger, who is currently earning a weekly wage of £12.5k-per-week according to Spotrac, failed to have a shot at goal, lost possession on 21 occasions and only made six successful passes (as per SofaScore).

In both of those final two departments, they were comfortably the worst tallies of all 22 players to start the game at Stamford Bridge.

Taking this into account, it's easy to see why Tella hadn't made an appearance in the league since the Everton defeat. However, perhaps it could be argued that his lack of game time and the strength of the opposition in Chelsea didn't work in Tella's favour.

Moving forward, it would be hard to see Hasenhuttl sticking with Tella and keeping him in the starting XI for their next league fixture against Leeds United later this month, in our view, based on what he showed on the pitch against Chelsea.

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