OLIVIER BERNARD described Saints' defeat against Chelsea as "hard to take."

Despite competing with the best team in England, it is a sign of how far Saints have come in recent weeks that Bernard and his teammates were bitterly disappointed to lose 3-1.

The French left-back, though, took consolation in the fact that Crystal Palace also lost at home - to a Middlesbrough side beaten 3-1 at The Riverside by Saints a fortnight earlier.

That means Saints remained fourth from bottom - one point above Palace with seven games remaining.

"We matched them but they didn't play that well," rued Bernard. "We made the game easier for them with mistakes and we were disappointed.

"It is hard to take but it is only one game and we have seven left.

"There are plenty of points to play for and hopefully we're going to get plenty of them and stay up.

"We knew it would be hard to get the three points against Chelsea but nothing is impossible and I don't think we played that bad."

He added: "We are disappointed to lose but it was not one against a team in the relegation battle, it was against the top team in England.

"It shows how far we have come. We are in good shape and we have performed quite well in recent weeks.

"This was a bad result for us but I don't think this will have a big effect.

"Chelsea beat Barcelona who are meant to be the top team in Europe, so we knew we had to play a really good team.

"A win would have been a big bonus for us."

With seven games left, Saints have a fairly kind looking run-in and next week travel to Blackburn for a crunch match against one of the teams battling to avoid the drop.

Bernard is convinced the trip to Ewood Park could yield a second away win in as many games and a first 'double' of the campaign.

"Blackburn is a huge match," said the man signed from Newcastle on a free transfer in January. "They are struggling as well.

"We have a competitive team at Southampton, we won at Middlesbrough and we are pretty confident.

"We know against Blackburn we'll have more chances than against Chelsea and we feel we can get a result."

Of Saturday's defeat - Saints first at St Mary's since last September - Bernard added: "At 2-1 we had the ball in their box and we could have scored another.

"But we didn't and that's the difference between a top team like Chelsea and Southampton.

"They deserve the title and the way they played against us showed how good they are.

"We tried a lot of things that didn't work and they looked really confident."