Light opera, but Seaman hits the right note for Ranieri

Chelsea 1 Manchester City 0: To its credit, the Chelsea programme does not pretend that Claudio Ranieri is a master of the Queen's English, much improved though his command of the language may be.

His pre-match words of wisdom have added authority for being printed in the manager's singular syntax.

Yet when Ranieri declares, as he did before Saturday's game against Manchester City, that "the result is not important, it's the performance that's important", one has to ask if he means what he says or is saying what he means.

Only in international friendlies does the performance come first. Where Premiership points are concerned a team can shrug aside an off day provided victory is achieved, which is what happened with Chelsea on Saturday.

To be fair to Ranieri, he did qualify what he meant by performance: ". . . the personality, the fact that you are playing for each other".

At times City demonstrated this rather better than Chelsea, although a fat lot of good it did them once David Seaman's failing reflexes had handed an easy goal to Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink 11 minutes before half-time.

Chelsea's failure to maintain the attacking rhythms that had seen off Lazio in the Champions League in midweek had as much to do with City's approach as any shortcomings of their own. Having lost 5-0 at Stamford Bridge last season after Chelsea had won 3-0 at Maine Road, Kevin Keegan was determined to avoid a further humiliation and in this, at least, he succeeded.

City are a busier team than they were. Joey Barton and Claudio Reyna consistently denied Frank Lampard the angles he needs to open a game up, and Joe Cole, starting only his third game of the season for Chelsea, was often lured into culs-de-sac.

In attack, City got men forward quickly and the ability of Michael Tarnat, their former Bayern Munich midfielder, to overlap on the left was a particular problem for Chelsea. It was from the German's cross six minutes before half-time that Robbie Fowler's point-blank header drew the save of the afternoon from Cudicini, who managed to push the ball on to a post.

The contrast in goalkeeping was the story of the match. Five minutes earlier Mutu had gathered a pass from Wayne Bridge on the left and outwitted David Sommeil before producing a low centre angled away from the goalkeeper.

The angle, however, was sufficiently narrow for Seaman to have the danger covered, but he was not quite there and could only palm the ball on to the shin of the incoming Hasselbaink, who scored an almost involuntary goal.

"We work like a team," said Ranieri. "Sometimes we lose the plot but always we work."

Fair enough, but on Saturday he was more animated on the touchline than usual and shouted a lot. "Yes, like Pavarotti," he smiled.

But Chelsea remain more Gilbert and Sullivan than grand opera.