The attacking theat was there, but you suspected they were guilty of one pass too many on approach and the home side made the breakthrough due to Spurs overplaying a bit in front of their own goal. Michael Carrick misplaced his pass across the area, which was seized on by Shaun Wright-Phillips down the right flank.
The game then meandered towards half-time with neither side looking particularly likely to score until a minute before the break when Spurs took advantage of Chelsea's failure to go for the jugular when in front. The home side had plenty of possession and applied pressure in the second half, but Spurs looked like seeing it out until heartbreak arrived in added time. Paul Stalteri cleared the ball only as far as William Gallas and the Frenchman reaped the points for Chelsea.
Head coach Martin Jol: "Chelsea were very dangerous in the first half on the break, but we made a decision at half-time to play with a bit more of a rigid formation and got better. They tried to hit the space through Wright-Phillips in the first half and Lee Young-Pyo defended better in the second half."
"It wasn't a great display, but a professional one from the lads but then we tried to play a clever ball and we gave away a goal instead of getting it up into their half. It was unbelievable. With one minute to go we didn't clear the ball and it cost us dearly - if we had we would have won a good point."
"I think we did well. I felt we did enough to deserve a draw and we could even have nicked it in the second half. A point would have been terrific at Chelsea. In the end it was very disappointing."
"We played well in the first 15 minutes but I thought overall, in the first half we didn’t have enough flair. We gave them space a couple of times from our own corner kicks. I thought Joe Cole did well for Chelsea moving in from the left wing and Gallas would then push up but that was the only problem we had. In the second half we coped with that and I didn't think we had any real problems. In fact the only real problem we had was when Michael Dawson misjudged a header for Drogba but Paul Robinson saved well. I can’t say they had lots of chances and overwhelmed us. After we equalised, I thought about changing something and maybe I could have brought Lennon on but I thought a point would have been a good result. We then made a mistake and that's not about team play, it's about individual mistakes."
Michael Carrick on attempting to defend Chelsea’s first goal: "It hasn't happened to me too many times, thankfully. There was a crowd of players and he (Wright-Phillips) popped up from nowhere!"
"We had steadied the ship after we got the goal back and were comfortable. Robbo didn't really have a lot to do and we had a lot of possession. We were thinking along the lines of nicking it and getting all three points. That made it (Chelsea’s late, late winner) a bit more hard to take."
Paul Stalteri on attempting to defend Chelsea’s second goal: "I wanted to get the ball up field as far as I could, but it was a bit of a miss-kick and it didn't come off. It was a mistake from me and again we gave up a last minute goal we should have avoided. I should have cleared it further but when someone pulls out a goal like that it makes you even more upset because there was nothing we could do."
"It was a bad moment for the team and me personally. It was unfortunate because we were close to coming away with a well-deserved point."
Assistant boss Chris Hughton: "The lads were all bitterly disappointed in the dressing room but we were upbeat about the performance.""We started very bright, did well on the counter-attack and, in the second half, we looked more solid and coped with them fairly well. We were up against real quality but most people would say that we deserved something from the game."
Source: Official site
Spurs starting line-up: The same starting XI as last time. Anthony Gardner replaced Davenport among the substitutes.
First half goal action: Michael Essien strike beat Paul Robinson after Shaun Wright-Phillips cross from the right of the penalty area.
Jermaine Jenas touch beat Petr Cech after Michael Dawon headed from the right a Michael Carrick free kick on the left.
Second half goal action: William Gallas from 25 yards out on the left beat Robinson.