Full-time: Sunderland 0 Chelsea 0

IN the last 11-and-a-half months, Chelsea have beaten Liverpool on three separate occasions. They have beaten Arsenal twice, scoring eight goals in the process, and have also recorded victories over Manchester City, Manchester United, Galatasaray, Paris St Germain and Sporting Lisbon.

Their record against Sunderland over the same period, however, reads: played three, won none, drawn one, lost two. In seems a strange thing to say, but Jose Mourinho must have palpitations whenever the Wearmouth Bridge comes into view.

Saturday’s goalless draw will be portrayed in some quarters as a triumph for negativity over ambition, but that would be an unfair assessment on a number of levels.

Even Mourinho, who hardly needs a second invitation to shift blame from his own players by demeaning their rivals, shied away from being too critical of Sunderland’s tactics at the weekend – “they defended well, but good defending is not a crime” – and if it was that easy to prevent Chelsea’s array of attacking talent from scoring, teams would be doing it every week.

Instead, Sunderland became the first team to prevent the league leaders from finding the net in any competition this season, and the fact that Saturday’s draw followed April’s win at Stamford Bridge, not to mention the last three seasons’ home wins over Manchester City, suggests it would be wrong to write it off as an anomalous quirk.

Sunderland excel against the best teams in the league, and that is not down to luck, but rather a result of their players’ ability to adhere to strict tactical instructions, run themselves into the ground in order to hassle and harry their opponents, and maintain their discipline and focus even though there might be long periods when they are not in possession of the ball.

Those traits were all apparent at the weekend as Lee Cattermole, who produced another defensive midfield master-class, and Seb Larsson, who was equally impressive, worked tirelessly to ensure Chelsea’s creative quartet of Eden Hazard, Oscar, Willian and Cesc Fabregas were unable to thread their intricate through balls into the feet of Diego Costa.

With Jack Rodwell providing some additional ballast on his return to the starting line-up, and both Connor Wickham and Adam Johnson tracking back assiduously from their wide positions, Chelsea’s players were regularly faced with a bank of nine defenders as they rotated the ball in the middle of the Sunderland half.

Getting through that was always going to be a challenge, and it became all-but-impossible once their opponents displayed a willingness to hurl themselves into blocks and a desire to ensure they were never physically outmuscled.

It is sometimes too simplistic to claim that one team “wanted it” more than another, but this certainly felt like an occasion when Sunderland’s collective willpower was an important asset.

“I think it was a combination of things,” said Wes Brown. “We know how good these top teams are, so we know we can’t afford to let our levels drop even a fraction.

“As a group, I thought we worked really hard. We had a plan before the game, and we knew we were going to have to defend for a lot of the match. We just made sure we didn’t give them much space to play into really.

“I thought we defended really well, and I think it’s a bit of everything that has to go into that. But it’s also about who wants it more. It’s not just skill and technical ability, you could see how much we wanted it and that made a difference. Lee Cattermole got us going with the first couple of tackles in the first couple of minutes of the game.”

Cattermole’s input was unquestionably key, with the midfield talisman once again allying discipline and control to his established combative qualities. An early sliding challenge to block a shot from John Terry set the tone, and he made countless other interceptions to frustrate Chelsea’s attackers.

“His defending is up there with any midfielder I’ve seen,” said Brown. “In every single game, you can never say he doesn’t try to give everything. He runs all day and shows 100 per cent commitment in every match.

“I’d be the first to rely on him because I know he’s going to do it every game. He’s shown that again, and tracked everyone back from first minute to last. I thought he wanted it more than a few of their players as well. That’s why he’s so valuable to us.”

Having scored five goals against Schalke three days earlier, Chelsea failed to even create five genuine chances at the Stadium of Light. Willian drilled a low 25-yard strike against the base of the left-hand post, while Costel Pantilimon made a decent first-half save with his legs to deny Branislav Ivanovic.

On the whole though, Sunderland’s defensive line never looked like being broken, and as the game wore on, it was the hosts who gradually became the likeliest scorers.

Santiago Vergini clipped the crossbar with a swivelled shot after Cattermole’s initial strike was deflected into his path, Connor Wickham fired marginally too close to Thibaut Courtois after cutting in from the left and, in the closing stages, Adam Johnson wasted the best chance of the game when he dragged a shot wide from 12 yards out.

Given that Chelsea were somewhat fortunate to finish with 11 men after Costa, who was subsequently booked for catching Brown in the face with a trailing arm, avoided censure for aiming an attempted kick at John O’Shea, it would be wrong to suggest the visitors were especially unfortunate not to claim all three points.

“You cannot win every game,” said Mourinho. “You have to drop points and if you lose points because of complacency or because you didn’t try, that is a big problem. When you lose points because the opponent tries everything to make it difficult for you, and when my boys tried everything to win, there is no complaining.”

From a Sunderland perspective, the result begs two questions. First, why can’t they do the same thing against the lesser teams in the league? And second, what on earth went wrong at Southampton?

“That doesn’t get any easier to explain,” said Brown. “You can maybe carry one or two players, but on that day for some reason, there were six or seven players that simply didn’t perform. It’s gone now though. We’ve moved on and need to build on things from here.”