Cruel, cool Chelsea take home the points as their three conductors enjoy centre stage at White Hart Lane

It was a disappointing defeat as Spurs lost their first home Premier League game of the 2012-13 season. Especially disenchanting that it should be Chelsea inflicting the damage, after the European champions so brutally denied Tottenham fans from seeing their club compete in the Champions League this year. Okay, the rules of every competition are laid out well in advance, and there can be no quibbling at losing the coveted last entry place for Europe's elite competition, but oh how it rankles that your club should finish fourth yet be denied by two undeserved victories for your rivals in Camp Nou and then the Allianz Arena. Tottenham have been unlucky for sure.

But that Chelsea should come to North London and take the three points, in a crucial encounter that could have seen the Lilywhites make real inroads into the race for the Championship, is doubly galling. Especially when you consider that the men who did the damage conceivably could have been plying their trade down the Seven Sisters High Road rather than in West London. Unlikely as it was, Tottenham made the early running for Eden Hazard, Juan Mata and Oscar at various times in the last 12 months, when the three impish midfielders were considering the next steps in their career. Although Mata may not have considered a club of Tottenham's class, should Spurs have been in the Champions League in 2012-13 then it's not so ridiculous to suggest that one of the three could have been supplying the bullets to Jermain Defoe on Saturday afternoon. Instead, Andre Villas-Boas must make do with Clint Dempsey and Gylfi Sigurdsson, two decent league players, but a pair who trailed in the shadows of Chelsea's silky trio for large parts of this weekend's match.

The three Blues orchestrators were the chief tormentors, neatly recycling the ball through the middle of White Hart Lane, at times with ease, at other moments with pure class and ingenuity, as they fed each other into the spaces that appeared when Sandro, Tom Huddlestone and Jake Livermore slowed their movement. By keeping the ball and teasing their chasing opposition, they tested the heart of their opponents just like the home fans' heartstrings were pulled around last May. Finally given the space the three conjurors craved in the second half of Saturday's pulsating encounter, they then ruthlessly exposed the Tottenham rear-guard to ensure the points went to Stamford Bridge. The fatal wounding was delivered just after Spurs supporters' hopes were raised following a high-intensity blast of pressing straight after half-time that saw the home side briefly lead the game 2-1. Still, at least the White Hart Lane faithful will be used to such cruel resolutions by now...

Reasons to be cheerful - the match stats show that Spurs were unlucky to not get anything from the game on Saturday, and with up to five first team regulars (Bale, Dembele, Kaboul, Assou-Ekotto and Parker) missing, the north Londoners can be sure that a brighter future awaits them: