José Mourinho’s instinct was to be deflated. Southampton have proved their challenge at the top end of the table remains as refreshing and persuasive as ever but from his vantage point with the league leaders, the Portuguese was having none of it. “From one perspective a draw at home to Southampton is not a good result,” said the Chelsea manager. “For me, that view is very acceptable. That is the feeling I have. The second perspective is we had a lead of five points from second place, and now it’s six points with one less match to play.”

That assessment was delivered through a monotone where a growl might have been more appropriate. This had been another missed opportunity to confirm the chasing pack’s pursuit is hopeless, for all that Arsenal are suddenly mounting their own distant challenge, but the leaders are not as fluent or effective as they would expect. It is too simplistic to argue that fatigue has set in, with the manager left to flog a fading horse over the finish line. After all, their second half attacking performance was blistering for long periods, Fraser Forster having to maintain his team’s point, with half of Chelsea’s 22 efforts coming after the 70-minute mark. Eden Hazard remains as irrepressible as ever and this was the bruising and goalscoring Diego Costa of early season once more.

But aspects of the attack are not clicking, the side’s rhythm disrupted by recent suspensions and niggling injuries, and opponents are not being dispatched quite as convincingly to merit such a hefty advantage at the top of the division.

Nemanja Matic is still labouring from the ankle injury sustained when he twisted while celebrating the Capital One Cup final victory he did not play in. Oscar has rather faded, his form tailing off as it did last year but, this time around, without the apparent distraction of a World Cup finals in his homeland looming large.

And then there is Cesc Fàbregas. The player lured back to England from Barcelona last summer had been this team’s creative fulcrum up until Christmas. In truth, he is effectively only failing now to live up to that phenomenal start at his new club. The tally of assists he had rattled up was mind-boggling, the 27-year-old allying vision and delicacy of pass with a streetwise spikiness in the challenge that the collective appreciated.

He was Matic’s perfect foil, operating from deep with an attacking quartet of team-mates ahead of him. His relationship with Costa seemed telepathic, his movement a constant scuttle, forever available to receive possession before picking his moment to liberate one of the sprinters further forward. Yet, at the end here, his shoulders had hunched as if confirming anxiety has long since set in. Where once he had revelled, now life is a slog.

Fàbregas, right, does not appear fully fit, his own muscular injuries having interrupted his form to prove even a World Cup and two-time European Championship winner can suffer crises of confidence. Those intricate passes which were finding their man earlier this season are now running aground on opponents, the frustration welling as his influence wanes.

There was a period immediately after the interval where he was caught in possession as he ventured into the penalty area, then robbed by Victor Wanyama nearer the halfway line. Both incidents provoked wails of exasperation from the stands, followed up as they were by a misplaced header to hand Southampton the ball inside the Chelsea half.

When Fàbregas was fed by Hazard on the edge of the area moments later, the crowd urging him to shoot, his instinct was to attempt to thread an improbable pass through the clutter of bodies ahead rather than shoot. Both options might have been deemed bold, but the fans were demanding urgency and, in seeing the ball smuggled away, all they saw was another wasteful delivery.

Perhaps he would have benefited from targets as energetic as Dusan Tadic, Steven Davis and Sadio Mané, marked contrasts to Oscar and Willian, early on, whose first-half displays at Stamford Bridge threatened to yield Southampton more than mere parity. With Matic uncharacteristically sluggish and Fàbregas not quite himself, Wanyama and Morgan Schneiderlin had been dominant. Ramires’s introduction tipped the balance back in Chelsea’s favour but other than one stunning pass caressed down the left flank with the outside of his right boot, the Spain international remained off-colour.

Mourinho knows that Fàbregas and Oscar must be revived if that early-season form is to be restored. This team cannot forever rely upon Hazard’s galloping presence to squeeze them through tight contests. The Belgian remains this team’s magician-in-chief, but even he must be pining for the accuracy of Fàbregas’s early-season passing.

“But if someone had told me in August that at the end of March we’d be six points in front with a match in hand, I’d have signed for that immediately,” Mourinho added. He will still want more.