Former Premier League stars Owen Hargreaves and Leon Osman hailed ‘brilliant’ after battered Southampton at St Mary’s.
’s side suffered disappointing defeats to and in the past seven days but returned to winning ways on Saturday, thrashing the Saints 6-0 in their own back yard.
The European champions were 4-0 up within 31 minutes as Mount, Marcos Alonso, Timo Werner and Kai Havertz all got on the scoresheet.
Werner added a fifth after half-time and Mount also bagged a brace with Chelsea’s sixth as the Blues returned to form in spectacular style on the south coast.
‘At one point we were worrying that it would be another 9-0 for Southampton,’ former Everton defender Osman told Premier League productions. ‘Chelsea were devastating in the first half.
‘They scored three early on and it could have been six. They really ripped Southampton to shreds. Mason Mount was at the top of his game.’
Ex-Manchester United midfielder Hargreaves added: ‘As we’ve seen, Mason Mount is absolutely brilliant on his day.
‘When Southampton are good they’re good, but when they’re bad they lose really big. They made really poor mistakes.
‘I’m not saying Ralph [Hasenhuttl] is getting used to it but he’s had a few of these results so maybe he can just chalk it off and move on.
‘He’ll be hugely disappointed but they’ve had a decent season. They were a mess today though and if anything Chelsea should have scored by more.’
Tuchel, meanwhile, was pleased to see the Champions League holders rediscover their best form following a bad spell for the club.
, and four days later the Blues .
‘This is how we want to play and we gave an answer finally because you could see it on the scoreboard,’ said Tuchel.
‘You could see they were focused to play to the plan and we did it with concentration, commitment, hunger and of course with quality.’
Asked about facing Real in the second leg on the back of a thumping win, Tuchel added: ‘It is a completely different game and opponent. The situation does not get easy.
‘First of all it was necessary to do the job here. That will be a very difficult task and there is no change to it. We did what we wanted and that is the good news.’
, .
,  and .
