Swaggering Sunderland put Chelsea to the sword

Chelsea 0 Sunderland 3. Carlo Ancelotti was left ruing Chelsea's "worst performance" since his arrival at Stamford Bridge as he watched visitors Sunderland rip through his side three times to inflict a humilating defeat on the league leaders.

Yes, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Michael Essien were missing, but Ancelotti could hardly have expected a team boasting the likes of Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda and Ashley Cole to have rolled over so easily on their home turf.

As short on quality and anaemic as Chelsea were, Sunderland had sparkle and swagger and richly deserved their historic victory.

After the game, Ancelotti said:  "We have to have a meeting about this when they come back from the international break.

"I think this was the worst performance since I've been here. The performance was poor today, but in football it can happen if you're not at your best and don't play with your best mentality.

"All the things were wrong. We didn't play how we wanted to, Sunderland showed fantastic spirit and played better."

Harrying and pressing, Sunderland could quite easily have taken a two or three goal advantage early in the game were it not for the goalkeeping heroics of Chelsea's Petr Cech.

Instead, the Black Cats had to wait until just before half time to open the scoring, but when they did it proved to be well worth the wait as Nedum Onuoha's goal must be a strong candidate for goal of the season.

Finding himself on the ball some 35 yards from goal, the Manchester City loanee singlehandedly dismantled the Chelsea defence, jinking his way past both Obi Mikel and Jose Bosingwa before delightfully dinking it past a wrong-footed Petr Cech as he held off Bratislav Ivanovic. It a goal reminisicent of Lionel Messi, and one that the Argentine would have been proud of.

 
Instead of the expected Chelsea fight-back in front of their own fans, it was Sunderland who continued to attack in the second half and they doubled the lead when a fine passing move set Asamoah Gyan free and the Ghanaian drove the ball into the bottom right corner.

Danny Welbeck added Sunderland's third on the 87th minute when Ashley Cole's back pass went straight to the on-loan Manchester United striker who only needed one touch to guide the ball past a floundering Cech.

How Chelsea respond to their first defeat at home since last March will be key to their title aspirations. They face tricky visits to Birmingham and Newcastle in the coming weeks and, with this result, their lead over second-placed Arsenal has been cut to just two points. ·