GORDON STRACHAN praised Saints' physical and mental toughness following yesterday's goalless draw at championship-chasing Chelsea.

It extended Southampton's unbeaten run to six - but almost came at a cost after a bruising Stamford Bridge encounter played on an extremely wet and heavy pitch.

Top scorer James Beattie came through numerous hard challenges and finished bloodied after a clash of heads with John Terry, while Michael Svensson described it as one of the toughest physical battles of the season.

It was certainly no repeat of last season's 4-2 New Year thriller, but Strachan was satisfied with the point, although he knows his squad have little recovery time before tomorrow's visit of Sunderland to St Mary's.

He said: "We have some bumps and bruises, but they will just have to get on with it, we can only really make a maximum of two changes for the weekend.

"We did not just defend, we attacked very well too.

"We had more goal attempts and corners in the first half but when we had to defend we did so very well.

"In the second half we had to stand up and be counted and played very sensible football on that pitch.

"I believe it is the same people who do our training pitch which is in the same state.

"We cannot train on it and have to use the youth team pitch at the moment.

"It was not conducive to great football. I want to see the beautiful game, but we had to play sensible football and play to our strengths.

"We knew we could not play Chelsea at their game because they are better at it than us.

"Chelsea have come on a lot since we won here a year ago and that made this a very good result for us.

"But we are doing well, we have a glow about us and we feel we can go toe-to-toe with anyone and match them."

Strachan dropped Brett Ormerod, opting for Jo Tessem alongside Beattie and was pleased to see the two big frontmen combine so well.

"Our two strikers did very well and made sure they didn't have it easy. We have some good and fit players and they made it easier for us to defend," he said.

Goalkeeper Antti Niemi made a late reaction save from William Gallas to deny Chelsea and Strachan added: "He made a fantastic save and has done very well."