18/01/2004  Chelsea 0 Birmingham City 0
 
On the sort of afternoon when titles cannot be won, but can certainly be lost, Chelsea endured further frustration as their enduring Premiership shortcomings were exposed by Birmingham City.

In short, you can spend £110million on a new squad, but you evidently cannot completely solve overnight Chelsea's inability to finish off dogged opponents, even at home.

Birmingham were incredibly tenacious at Stamford Bridge, with Robbie Savage and Stephen Clemence excelling in central midfield as they outplayed, let alone outfought, their far more illustrious opponents.

Scott Parker simply cannot arrive quickly enough if Charlton can be persuaded to sell, as too much is being asked of Frank Lampard and, especially, Claude Makekele.

While Joe Cole hit the post, keeper Maik Taylor was otherwise equal to everything else that Chelsea threw at him as they missed the chance to narrow the gap on Manchester United and leaders Arsenal.

There may be quality in abundance at Stamford Bridge but, above all, where Claudio Ranieri's side still fall as short as ever before is in their inability to win when not at their best.

Having lost at home to Liverpool 11 days earlier, their brief renaissance with four goals against both Leicester and then Watford in the FA Cup was undermined.

Birmingham may have been depleted by injuries and the absence of on-loan Chelsea striker Mikael Forssell for this fixture, but they remained undaunted.

Indeed, they immediately took the game to Chelsea, with Damien Johnson forcing Carlo Cudicini into a neat save after he had cut inside Wayne Bridge.

Chelsea began to carve out openings of their own, with Maik Taylor denying Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Glen Johnson.

However, the home side were being denied the space in midfield from which to launch anything other than long-range efforts.

And when they did finally find some width, thanks to Frank Lampard's excellent crossfield ball, Hasselbaink headed Bridge's cross narrowly wide.

Cole almost turned the game with a moment of individual ability as his neat dip of the shoulder past Olivier Tebily took him into a shooting position, but his curling effort struck the far post.

Otherwise, Chelsea were too often guilty of over-elaborating, with Jesper Gronkjaer particularly guilty of running down blind alleys.

In central midfield, they came up against the ceaseless endeavour of Savage, aided and abetted by Clemence, while width was all too hard to find down the flanks.

In short, Birmingham's containment strategy was working to perfection, with Bryan Hughes starting to make the most of Glen Johnson's hesitation.

It was no wonder, therefore, that Ranieri replaced the ineffective Gronkjaer with Damien Duff, who had only returned from an injury lay-off as a midweek substitute against Watford, at the break.

In an explosive start to the second-half, Birmingham threatened first, with Clinton Morrison and Stern John calling Cudicini into action, while Savage shot over the bar.

Back came Chelsea, however, as Taylor's weak punch under pressure from Marcel Desailly fell to William Gallas, whose lobbed effort was acrobatically cleared off the line by Tebily.

Still Birmingham held out, even as Lampard burst into the area on to Cole's ball and went round Darren Purse only to be foiled by an excellent save from Taylor.

On came Adrian Mutu, replacing not Hasselbaink or Gudjohnsen, but Cole as Ranieri went for broke with a virtual four-man strikeforce that featured the Romanian in a largely free role.

Steve Bruce responded with the rather more prosaic talents of Stan Lazaridis, who replaced Morrison, as they moved to a five-man midfield.

Chelsea certainly threw everything they had at Birmingham in the final stages, only for Taylor to save Lampard's snap-shot and then fling himself bravely at Hasselbaink's feet.

Gudjohnsen resisted the temptation to go down in search of a penalty but promptly shot wide and all of Chelsea's late pressure came to nothing.

Roman Abramovich is supposedly a patient man who does not expect his new club to win the title in their first season together. On this evidence, it is just as well.