Chelsea 1 Portsmouth 0Even at this early stage the sight of Chelsea at the top of the Premier League will cause their potential rivals more concern than Wigan or Manchester City briefly donning the yellow jersey.
True Jose Mourinho's team led the table for a week last autumn and remained second to Manchester United thereafter, but when they last won the title in 2005-'06 they hit the front in August and stayed there.
This season, moreover, Chelsea have yet to get fully into their stride and, on Saturday, Portsmouth came close to knocking them out of whatever stride they had. With better finishing, and had Ashley Cole not flung himself along the goal-line four minutes from the end to nod clear Hermann Hreidarsson's header, Harry Redknapp's side would surely have taken a point off Chelsea for the first time in nine Premier League meetings.
As it was Mourinho's men won a patchy, low-key affair with Frank Lampard's third goal in as many games, scored just past the half-hour with the help of a mistake by David James. Lampard's shot appeared to take a slight deflection off Hreidarsson but James had the ball covered and should not have allowed it to slip under him.
"David is normally quite hard on himself," said Redknapp, "but he has not said anything."
After the match Mourinho offered two hackneyed excuses for Chelsea's largely indifferent display: the midweek internationals had disrupted the training routine and the heat had affected his players.
Mourinho was nearer the mark in praising Portsmouth: "A good team who are well-organised with good players and a good manager," he said.
Fundamental to Portsmouth's performance was the peerless defending of Sol Campbell. Few centre backs can take on Didier Drogba in battles of speed and strength and win on both counts. It was only when Drogba came up against Sylvain Distin as he went to meet a long free-kick that he was able to lay the ball off for Lampard to move into space near the 18-yard line and get the winner.
"Frank does what he does better than anybody else," said Redknapp. "He ran off his marker and gambled that he would get on the knockdown, and that's exactly what he did."
Mourinho took the opportunity to defend Lampard against his critics. "He's a winner," he declared. "He was not happy with just two cups last season and I know I can count on him."
Lampard has decided to suspend negotiations on a new contract until the end of the season and he will doubtless continue to make strong bargaining points on the pitch.
England manager Steve McClaren and his assistant, Terry Venables, must have taken encouragement from the form of Lampard, Campbell, Ashley Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips, who several times turned Portsmouth's defence and can only improve if Mourinho gives him a run in the team now Arjen Robben has gone to Real Madrid.
For all Portsmouth's attacking intent - when Noe Pamarot replaced Lauren they had four front men searching for an equaliser - Petr Cech was seldom called on. And when Hreidarsson's header did have him beaten Cole saved the situation. Mourinho shrugged aside his team's early ascendancy in the league as being too soon to be meaningful. "To be there means what it means. It is good to be there," he said.
