If money talks then its message was shouted loud and clear above the deafening din of a new club record crowd. Saints must invest in a top quality striker.

Over the summer, Chelsea splashed out £33 million on four new players; Southampton spent almost exactly the same to build their superb new ground!

The Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium will ultimately give Saints greater spending power and already there is a clear and urgent need for a major outlay.

Ted Bates always used to say that you win nothing with bricks and mortar and, while there is no doubting the glorious quality of Saints' new home, on its own it is not enough.

It was blindingly obvious from this desperately disappointing first home league game that Saints have to boost their firepower - and fast.

They now have two weeks without a match, time and opportunity to bring in a proven marksman, someone who can be relied upon to get a minimum of 15 league goals.

It is a crucial decision and a pivotal stage of the season. Manager Stuart Gray is well aware that his side needs more of a cutting edge - and in truth has done ever since Glenn Hoddle first came to the club.

In those 18 months, their biggest Premiership win has been just 2-0 and they badly need a top-class finisher.

They have to find a poacher who can be relied upon to get on the end of balls into the box, to feast on the pickings in front of goal and to regularly stick away half chances.

That has been the significant difference between Saints and both Leeds and Chelsea in the first two games of the season.

They matched the big-spending London side in the first two thirds of the field but lacked their clinical edge in front of goal.

For all their possession and play they did not force a serious save from suspect 'keeper Ed de Goey, mustering only a header just over from Uwe Rosler plus a series of long-range efforts, all off target.

Certainly Saints should have had a penalty which might well have changed the outcome with 13 minutes left. But it would be clutching at straws to point to that as the sole cause of defeat.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink painfully highlighted the gulf in finishing class after just 31 minutes when he went down in history as the first league scorer at the Friends Provident St Mary's Stadium.

He peeled sharply away from Dean Richards to work a simple eight-yard header into an empty net as he got on the end of an exquisite teasing cross which just eluded the fingertips of Paul Jones. It came from Graeme Le Saux who was shown inside by Rory Delap but was allowed to cut in sharply past Matthew Oakley's amble.

Maybe it was the intense heat but that was a significant feature of Saints' play all afternoon.

Too often they lacked a critical burst of speed with passes being seen as an end-product rather than a start.

Frequently players would play the ball but then not run into position to receive it back or to look for the bits and pieces in the box.

Uwe Rosler is at last winning over the fans for his heart and passion and honest work ethic but he received little support.

After 58 minutes Frank Lampard swept the ball wide left for Boudewijn Zenden to hare down the flank. When he hit a dead end, there was Jody Morris galloping forward for the lay-back.

Although he fired over, it highlighted Saints' failure to get men breaking forward quickly from midfield in the same way.

Rosler was often an isolated figure with Marian Pahars largely ineffective. Although he now has his preferred central role, he too often sticks to Glenn Hoddle's old directive to drift wide.

He was supposed to be the poacher Saints' lack but right now he looks subdued, his body language betraying the lack of spark in his game.

Anders Svensson has the creative ability to pick out his darting runs but he failed to make them, leaving Saints with a blunt edge to their game.

The midfield and defence were reasonably effective in preventing Chelsea from finding any fluency and it was only as the game becamse stretched that they found real space.

The second goal, deep into injury-time, barely counts because by then Saints had Richards up front as they piled men forward in necessarily reckless pursuit of an equaliser.

For the record it was similar to the first goal. Gianfranco Zola swept left for Hasselbaink to find Lampard on the overlap. He clipped the ball over the dive of Jones for Mario Stanic to sweep into the empty net at the far post.

It was a terribly disappointing end to what should have been a great day. But it can still be a bright new beginning if this defeat proves the catalyst to bring in the goalscorer so clearly needed.