Every word Southampton manager Martin said ahead of Chelsea

What is the latest team news ahead of Chelsea?

RM: We're hopeful that Paul Onuachu will be involved on Wednesday, which will be good for us. Everything else is the same. 

Jan Bednarek will be back in the squad as well, hopefully, all being well. We'll assess whether he's ready to play or not but he'll be back involved which will be good for us.

Have you spoken to Howard Webb about VAR on Friday?

RM: Yeah, I spoke to Howard. I think Howard Webb's really, as I said before, I think he's a good guy. I think he's in a really tough position.

I think there's an acceptance that the goal should have stood. I think how we get to that decision is the only topic of debate for me and him really.

But I think he thinks it's the wrong call from the referee on the pitch. I hope he doesn't mind me saying that, but that was the conversation we had.

VAR is there for the reason that if there's uncertainty about Adam Armstrong's involvement and how much he affects people then give the goal on the pitch.

Let VAR decide if that's really clear and wrong and I think if that was the process, it's a goal. I think that's agreed.

My argument still is that when the goal gets disallowed, I think it's still within the rights of VAR to say it's not offside and should be a goal, I think.

Obviously, that's open to interpretation. It has to be clear and obvious which is what they deemed and raised the bar. The bottom line is it should have been a goal.

What do you make of Enzo Maresca's start to life at Chelsea?

RM: I think Enzo's done a great job. I've got a lot of respect for him and what he did at Leicester last season.

I'm really pleased for him that a club as big as Chelsea has recognised the work he did in the Championship and given him the credit because they were brilliant.

I think sometimes the hardest thing for a coach to do is to take another team and make it his own and look very similar in such quick time, which he's done.

He has a really talented group of players, for sure, but he's managed to get them to buy into his way of doing things his way of working and his way of playing.

They are really starting to click into gear and to get into flow a bit. Against Aston Villa on the weekend, they were excellent, really outstanding.

They have some top players but it's how you get them players on the ball and in the areas where you want to. They can do their stuff and they do it regularly.

We have to be aware of it. We have an understanding of what his team likes to do from last season. Now he's doing it with really high-level players.

I think that's been the toughest challenge at that club over the last couple of years, is to get them to really buy into one thing.

He seems to have done with players who were bought for different things so it's big credit to him and it'll be a tough game for us.

How do you balance your style of play and playing a team like Chelsea?

RM: I think you're always balancing game to game but we're having a strategy that is not just built game to game.

You have to be able to zoom in and out and regardless of the outcome, wherever we've been, we have started at the utopia, the end goal, how we want it to look.

Then how you get there is very different depending on players, circumstances, how adaptable you need to be, and the shape you need to play.

Some things take longer than others, some quicker. We've adapted the shape game to game without losing the philosophy or principles that make us us.

We've worked on what got us here in the first place last season and before that as a group of management staff.

I've said before that when you really believe in something, you just don't believe in it too much if you don't stick with it. So we believe in something. 

How we get there looks different game to game and with different players and we have three players missing tomorrow that have been huge for us.

Plus Aaron Ramsdale and Janny B who have been massive for us. You take five players out of the team and they've probably been our five most consistent performers.

We have to adapt and we have to tweak without losing what we believe in and what's important to us. I'm looking forward to seeing how we cope with that.

Have you been kicking yourself it didn't work out playing all three players on four yellows?

RM: What didn't work out? Because they all got banned. We got a point away from home so it worked out all right.

Did that possibility of bans come into your thinking?

RM: No, am I kicking myself about playing three of our best players away from home against a team that went second in the Premier League? Absolutely not.

The five booking thing, when you play in certain positions, if they're good bookings you can accept it. I think a couple of them were for dissent.

That is annoying because it shouldn't be the case. But we ask the team to be aggressive, to press high, to try and dominate with the ball as much as we can.

Sometimes they're going to have to take a booking for the team and if they're good bookings, you have to accept that as part of it.

I think the three of them being banned at the same time is probably a bit unusual and they've been three top players but it's one of the things that's happened.

It's been 13 games in or whatever now and it's happened and we have to adapt to it.

Does Joe Lumley's inclusion give other players an extra iota of motivation?

RM: Possibly, yeah. I think in the same way probably Ryan Manning coming out from being not even on the bench to then playing and doing really well.

He has been doing well enough to keep his place in the team or to be on the bench and then come on in games.

I think we've said all season that you can be out of the squad, but we're going to need everyone. In the situation we're in, you can go from not being in the squad to starting.

That's just how it is. I think you have to be ready all the time. Lummers wouldn't have played if he wasn't ready. Ryan Manning wouldn't have played if he hadn't stayed fit.

If he hadn't trained really, really well. He just wouldn't have played. You have to deserve to play and sometimes you just get a feeling about someone.

Circumstance sometimes dictates and then sometimes you think, oh, maybe we need that in the team, that person in the team for various reasons.

So I think everyone understands there is an opportunity always in this squad, no matter how far out you might feel at certain points.

Hopefully, they never feel too far away because they're involved in everything we do. They understand. They might not agree.

But they understand the reason they're not involved because we're honest with them and then after that, it's up to them to take any opportunity they get.

How has Flynn Downes reacted to his first Premier League goal?

RM: I think he's just frustrated not to be playing so I think that's overtaken the feeling he had. But I was so pleased for him.

I think it was one of his best games for us. He was outstanding and the goal was a great team goal and he ended up being intense enough to be around the box.

We had a lot of players there at that point. Ryan Manning, a real moment of composure in the box. The move to get there was nice. So I'm pleased for Flynn.

He took his goal really, really well and I think we looked a different team when he wasn't on the pitch but he had to go off.

I think with the amount of pressure their dugout were putting on the officials as well for Flynn to get another yellow card. It was only going to end one way.

He was on such a tightrope at that point. We had to take him off and the team looked different but he's hugely important and that goal will do him the world of good.

Do you see Chelsea as potential title challengers this season?

RM: I don't know, I think any one of them top four or five clubs, teams are in with a shout, aren't they? Liverpool are in such impressive form.

Will they hit a bad patch at some point, like Man City have? It's so demanding, so many games they play all these teams, and an injury or two can derail you.

I'm sure that Enzo will tell this team that it's wide open and they can fight for everything and anything and why shouldn't they?

They're top opposition, but we've played against lots of really top teams recently and done really well and been competitive. We have to be the same again.

We have to be hard to play against, we have to defend well but try and hurt them with the ball as much as we can like we have done in certain moments.

Chelsea have strong pressing game, can you learn from Bournemouth and Brighton?

RM: I think Bournemouth are incredible at it, it's very much what they're built on. Chelsea's very different because they want to dominate the ball with Enzo.

Then press you in a different way when they've got a lot of people around the ball in a similar way as Brighton the other night, so I think every team is different.

I think you can take things from every game in every phase of the game, when you have the ball, when you're without the ball, when you transition.

Every game is different and Chelsea, as I said, in terms of style on that team, I really like. They're really good players and the manager's really clear on what he wants.

I think we're really aware of the challenge and hopefully, they'll appreciate that we try and play in a certain way and respect that as well.

As a manager, do you have any confidence in the PGMOL?

RM: I think it's probably a bit harder than it needs to be at times now. I think some stuff gets left on field because they know they have the security of a VAR.

Then the other night a decision gets made on-field and the VAR doesn't correct it, which doesn't help. The process is what means it doesn't get corrected.

It will go down as a correct call from VAR, so this is the issue. It will because they haven't overturned it as it's not clear and obvious and open to interpretation.

Then it just goes down to a refereeing error but surely the whole point of having both is so we avoid any errors. So I don't know, I don't know.

Like I said, I've got a lot of respect for Howard Webb. I did as a ref, I thought he was one of the best refs I ever played under because of how he was.

He communicates very well and is very clear why he's in that position. I'm sure he gets a lot of respect from the referees. I have trust and faith in him as a person.

I have trust in his standards that he will hold people to account. But he has a job publicly to make sure that he protects his people as I would protect my players.

I think it's a difficult balance for him and I just don't want to be moaning about VAR and referees and stuff like that but it seems we have been a bit unfortunate.

I think you recognise that we seem to be talking way too much about VAR nd I hope there comes a point where we're just not, because ultimately it is fruitless.

I appreciate that they accept that it should have been a goal but also it doesn't matter one jot and we're maybe two points worse off than we might have been.

Can we look at other sports to simplify the VAR process? 

RM: think we can learn a lot from rugby in the way that they communicate it and it's on a big screen and all that stuff. Also just the clarity of the communication.

When we get sent over to comms, there's a lot of people talking and a lot of people calling each other mate and all that stuff. I'm not just sure that's elite and high level.

It needs to be a bit clearer but that's not for me, that's for Howard to work out. They'll probably sit at Stockley Park and read what I've said and be very angry.

I don't mean it that way. I don't mean any disrespect but I just think we try and look at what we do every day and try and improve it - and I'm sure they are.

I think that's all you can ask because if we're going to use it and we're going to embrace this technology for a long time, let's try and make it as good as we possibly can.

It is still fairly new and all that stuff and I'd much rather leave it to them guys to sort out because there's probably a lot to sort out.

How hard has it been to put together a team to face Chelsea?

RM: I think we have to accept we're missing some key players but also we have a lot of trust in the players we have. It's quite exciting for a couple to have an opportunity.

It's quite exciting trying to work out the best way to accommodate those suspensions and injuries in the same way when we knew others were going to come out.

When Paul was going to come out for a game or two, you just try and work it out, don't you? Adapt and flex and we have big trust in the players that are coming in.

We have big trust in the shape we're going to play tomorrow and the players that are in it, because they've done it before. I'm looking forward to it.

Given your experience against Maresca last year, do you have to surprise him?

RM: Last year, they played us early on and it was probably a good time to play us at our place. Then it was probably a really bad time to play them at their place.

We'd had a really difficult result at the weekend and they were in such a good place, very close to winning the league. We would have learnt a bit. 

They would have learnt a bit about us for sure but also I think his challenge is different now. He has very different players. Our challenge is different now.

I think the context of the game is different and of course there'll be stuff that we learnt from it and he did but I think it's very different.

We do things a bit differently this year than we did last year. And he does the same because he has a different group of players.

So I think it's going to be an exciting game and I think one we can definitely try and impose ourselves on. They'll be thinking exactly the same.

How much does it help having the good stuff from Brighton to show the players?

RM: There were some really good moments in transition on Friday night. There's been lots of good stuff after Liverpool, after Man City.

I think the only difference is we have a point to show for it and we didn't in the games before that so hopefully that gives the players a bit more feeling.

I want them to feel good about themselves but they've had enough evidence over the course of the 13 games to really believe in what they're doing.

There are moments that have hurt us but they're avoidable. It's not like we're not getting cut open. We're not getting completely dominated and just hanging in there.

We're having moments in every game. We need to have a few more. Against Brighton there was a mistake early with Yuki Sugawara where Karou Mitoma missed a chance.

After that, we looked solid. We were a bit too passive without the ball in the first half without really giving too much up.

But in the second half, we looked much better, more aggressive, more front-footed. And as I said, we had moments with the ball where we hurt them as well.

I think we want the team to be as aggressive. Like last year, it was built on that really. And people will never talk about the out-of-possession stuff.

They want to talk about the stuff we do with the ball and all that but you can't have a lot of the ball without being aggressive about it. That's for sure.

I think sometimes that comes down to belief and believing what you are and who you are and who you're playing against and really being willing to go toe-to-toe.

There will be moments where it doesn't quite go right. But I love the aggression of the team in the second half. I loved the intensity of defending against Liverpool.

And against Man City for large parts, Arsenal away. We have to bring it all on the pitch in the Premier League all the time to have a chance of achieving something