Derby County 0 Chelsea 2:Blue is the colour but Chelsea continue to see red at inappropriate moments, adding an unnecessary touch of rancour to a routine win at Derby when Michael Essien got himself sent off in stoppage time. The Ghanaian will miss the next three Premier League games during the run-in to Christmas, including a visit to Arsenal, before Chelsea lose him to the African Cup of Nations in the new year.
Essien was among several regulars rested by Avram Grant, in addition to the injured Didier Drogba, in advance of Chelsea's Champions League match against Rosenborg on Wednesday. He came off the bench for the last 15 minutes and flailed an arm as Kenny Miller hassled him from behind, catching the Derby player in the face. A straight red card was inevitable.
Not that Grant saw it quite that way. Clearly Mourinho's successor is now fully in the swing of things as a manager in England, where rhetoric often runs ahead of reason.
"I have a feeling that we are an easy target for getting cards," he said. "It happened against Manchester United and Fulham and today it was the same."
Mikel John Obi's sending-off at Old Trafford may have been debatable but surely the Essien dismissal brooked less argument.
That apart, life for Chelsea under Grant continues to look good. Since losing to United they have been unbeaten in a dozen matches and Saturday's victory kept them up to pace in the pursuit of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League. With the return match against Rosenborg, whose 1-1 draw at Stamford Bridge hastened Mourinho's departure, Grant will be back where he came in and so far little has happened to make Chelsea rue the Special One's absence.
Saturday's changes made little difference to the game's inevitable course. Frank Lampard, like other England losers from Wednesday, suffered booing from opposing supporters but he was already being booed anyway and responded with another impressive performance for his club in terms of passing, movement and awareness.
Mikel, Lampard and Steve Sidwell sliced open a static Derby defence to create the opening goal for Salomon Kalou after 17 minutes, and with 17 to go Lampard threaded his way through to hit a post, leaving Shaun Wright-Phillips to fire home the rebound.
Derby showed more spirit than they did in losing 5-0 at home to West Ham a fortnight earlier and were ill-served by two poor decisions: the linesman's flag that wrongly adjudged Miller offside when, at 1-0, he gathered a forward lob from Dean Leacock before beating Carlo Cudicini; and the referee's failure to penalise Andriy Shevchenko for coming through Giles Barnes from behind to win the ball from which Chelsea scored their second.
Not that the Derby manager made much of these incidents. With the January transfer window approaching Billy Davies is now in spending mode, always assuming he has cash to spend.
"This team isn't good enough to stay in the Premier League," he declared flatly after this defeat, which left Derby more firmly rooted to the bottom of the table.
"No reflection on the present squad but we need players with special technique to play at this level. Manchester City are the perfect example of how fresh investment can benefit the playing side."
But Derby's new chairman, Adam Pearson, has already intimated that unless the situation improves by the new year he will not throw money at a lost cause.
"I haven't seen the chairman in the last three weeks," said Davies, "he is a very busy man." Sounds as if Pearson is also a very wise one.
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