Chelsea 1-1 Southampton - 5 talking points

Chelsea failed to capitalize on title rivals Manchester City’s slip-up as they were held to an entertaining 1-1 draw by this season’s surprise package Southampton. Diego Costa returned to scoring ways as his header gave the hosts the lead in the 11th minute, but that was cancelled out within minutes as Dusan Tadic’s penalty drew the scores level. It was an edge of the seat game where the pendulum swung wildly till the final whistle.Here are the five talking points of this exhilarating draw played at Stamford Bridge:

#1 Diego Costa is back!

Diego Costa has been in theheadlines for all the wrong reasons since the turn of the year. He was injured and later on suspended for his in field shenanigans, but today he showed why he is backed so much by his gaffer.

The Spaniard scored and silenced his critics as he showed his supreme positioning skills whenhe skilfully made space for himself between Saints centre halves to meet an exquisite cross from Branislav Ivanovic. Especially in the first half, when the entire Chelsea team was torrid to say the least, he was the only player along with Eden Hazard who looked like creating any sort of trouble for the Saints.

In the second half, he was particularly unlucky to not score as he came agonisingly close on many occasions, but was either denied by the flying Southampton defenders or some brilliant piece of keeping from Fraser Forster. He gave the required boost at the top to a resurgent Chelsea side.

Today he proved why he was the last piecemissing inJose Mourinhos jigsaw. He was without a shadow of the doubt one of the very few positives for the hosts tonight.