English FA Premiership: If you can't hand the champions-elect a bad result you have to settle for giving them a bad review. "I was underwhelmed," one Spurs fan grumbled as he left. "Chelsea were rubbish," responded another.

They were comically biased, but there is a monotony about any team with a painstaking method that is almost beyond sabotage.

This prudent steadiness is not what we expect from the Premiership. Last season gave us the mesmeric grace of an Arsenal team who made history with their unbeaten record. The year before we had a gritty Manchester United tracking down Arsene Wenger's side in the spring. Chelsea will not be providing such a page-turner of a tale.

It might be a new experience for them to be front-runners, but they relish it. "We are 10 points clear and that puts the pressure on Arsenal," said midfielder Joe Cole. "We know how it feels from last year, when they just kept on winning." This was another formidable performance in the all-purpose Chelsea manner. As the Spurs head coach Martin Jol admitted, his side could scarcely make an impression, never mind a genuine chance, in the last 30 yards of the pitch.

Jose Mourinho's team need merely continue being their scrupulous selves and the title will be theirs. There are 15 fixtures left and of the next four the highest-ranked opponents are Manchester City, in ninth place.

Chelsea should be at Manchester United on April 16th but, with the FA Cup semi-finals scheduled for that weekend, the fixture may well be postponed into utter irrelevance.

Spurs' indignation over the penalty Frank Lampard dispatched perfectly for the opener in the 39th minute is questionable. Damien Duff surprised them by keeping the ball in play and Ledley King, unaware that Alexei Smertin was rushing in, made slight contact with the Russian as he sought to clear the cross.

Arjen Robben ought to have had penalties before and after that. Noe Pamarot pushed him over on one occasion and Michael Brown fouled him on the other. The Dutchman was subdued, yet with different verdicts from the referee he would still have wreaked havoc.

"Maybe we've had the poor run," the assistant manager Steve Clarke said of Arsenal and Manchester United's hope that Chelsea will get into trouble. He may be correct that the loss to Manchester City and a couple of goalless draws in the autumn is as bad as it gets. "People can say that we are going to have a blip," Cole said, "but the only reason would be if we get complacent. We are not going to be complacent."

People should also notice that Mourinho is still reinforcing. With Spurs 1-0 down, Jol probably pushed King into attack because he remembered how Bolton had used their height to score twice and snatch a point at Stamford Bridge in November.

Since then, however, Mourinho has bought Jiri Jarosik and the 6ft 3in midfielder was sent on soon after the Spurs captain was drafted into the forward line.

At the close King was merely missed in defence. In stoppage time, Chelsea's Eidur Gudjohnsen went round another substitute, Anthony Gardner, and pulled the ball back for Lampard to finish forcefully.

Before this, Jol's side had scored 17 in an unbeaten sequence of eight games, but that has no bearing on an engagement with a team of Chelsea's calibre. The White Hart Lane team have now gone 30 league games without a victory over Chelsea and Lampard has further recompense for their 5-1 League Cup defeat in 2002. "It's always in our minds when we come here, it was a horrible night," he said.

If it's any consolation to Spurs, a lot of clubs are going to have a sorry record against Mourinho's side.