Performance Rather Than Defeat to Tottenham the Biggest Worry for Chelsea
Defeats happen, and when they come along as infrequently as they do for Chelsea, there's little need to panic.
Jose Mourinho's side are still top of the table and have plenty about them to suggest they will win the Premier League this season.
Chelsea are far from a crisis.
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That said, they need to be concerned about the 5-3 drubbing Tottenham Hotspur dished out at White Hart Lane on New Year's Day.
Losing is one thing, but the manner in which Chelsea weren't just cut open, but torn apart by Spurs, is alarming.
When Diego Costa put Chelsea ahead after 18 minutes, this game had all the hallmarks of being another routine victory at White Hart Lane.
Chelsea were in control and in the immediate aftermath of that strike had opportunities to double their lead.
They didn't, and when Spurs came back at them, Mourinho's men had little answer.
In a crazy 15 first-half minutes, Chelsea went missing. Harry Kane bossed the defence and was inspirational as the home side netted three times to go in 3-1 at the break.
When Chelsea eventually responded through Eden Hazard on the hour, the score was already 4-1 after Kane had scored his second of the game.
For the neutral, this was a match that summed up perfectly the allure of the Premier League's Christmas tradition. It was end-to-end stuff, goals were flying in and the drama was breathtaking.
For the coaches of each team and those fans who fancy themselves as tacticians, it was a nightmare.
Both teams lacked shape. It became a simple case of each side trying to outscore the other with little method other than attacking in numbers.
Normally Chelsea are more controlled than this; they don't allow games to slip away from them.
Get in their faces and up the tempo, however, and Spurs have shown what can happen. Chelsea became too reactive and paid the price.
For the first time in a long while we saw them on the back foot, not knowing how to react.
They appeared shellshocked, something it seemed had rubbed off on Mourinho, who was speechless at first in his post-match interview with BT Sport.
OK, that was more to do with the Chelsea manager's attempts at choosing his words carefully when discussing referee Phil Dowd's performance, but even he couldn't make up any excuses for his team's overall display.
"I think we made some defensive mistakes—some individual defensive mistakes. It was not easy for my defenders to cope with a good [Nacer] Chadli and especially a good Kane," he told the TV cameras.
"It was also very difficult for Tottenham's defenders to cope with an amazing Hazard and a good Diego Costa.
"You can speak about the result, you can focus on the result, you can focus on the important moments of the game and I prefer to just focus on the result. If I focus on the crucial moments of the game, you know what I have to say as you have exactly the same opinion as I have."
Mourinho was referring to the referee in that instance, but Dowd's impact on this game was minimal. There's nothing the referee could have done to prevent wave after wave of Spurs attacks.
That job was down to Mourinho's players. They failed. Miserably.
Had Mourinho aired his thoughts in more depth on how he really felt about his team's performance, the BT Sport reporter would have struggled to disagree with him.
We all saw it.
Chelsea have no place to hide after this defeat and the manager needs to make sure his players are aware of that fact.
He's right to remain silent in front of the cameras, but behind closed doors the criticism needs to be frank.
Kane's equaliser and the penalty he won—converted by Andros Townsend—were the result of excellent forward play.
It would be unfair to the Spurs man if the focus was turned on Chelsea's defenders. He bossed Oscar before firing low beyond Thibaut Courtois and used his guile to nip in front of Gary Cahill, whose attempted clearance of the ball ended up being a hefty kick on Kane's shin to bring him down inside the box.
He was brilliant, but with Spur's other three goals, Chelsea's defence was woeful.
Branislav Ivanovic and Cahill were both guilty of losing their runners. Chadli's strike—Spurs' fifth—summed up their afternoon as he drifted into the box, unmarked with acres of space to unleash his effort.
And this was Spurs, a team that had scored just five goals in their previous five home matches. They've been struggling for goals all season, yet when Chelsea came to north London, the Blues were a push over.
It's 2015 now, so we'll say it was Christmas come early for the home side. Very early.
Any team with title aspirations can't be this charitable. Arsenal have shown us down the years what can happen to a title challenge when the floodgates open.
Defeats happen to every team, even Chelsea. Losing to Newcastle United last month told us they were not invincible, and on the back of this result we've learned a few more things.
Chelsea lost a whole lot more than three points at White Hart Lane.
Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained first-hand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes
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