Chelsea 2 Aston Villa 1

Lampard weaves his magic to set a new Blue standard

In the end it was the sheer belligerence and astonishing desire of Chelsea that won through with two goals from the relentless Frank Lampard earning a seventh straight Premiership victory - and with it a record at the start of a campaign, surpassing the six wins of Newcastle United in 1994. In addition they earned a club record of nine consecutive victories.

For once there was no clean sheet with the impressive Luke Moore, after 43 minutes and 20 seconds, becoming the first player to beat Petr Cech this season. The defeat was tough on Villa, especially as they had taken the lead. It also consigned them to their worst-ever start in the Premiership.

Their manager, David O'Leary, summed up the thoughts of everyone. "Did Manchester United get beat today?" he asked. "And Arsenal draw. What a beautiful day for Chelsea." Is there any way they can be stopped? "They would have to lose a lot of players and Mr Abramovich go skint in January," he said.

O'Leary's comments were the only ones offered to the press. Even though this was Jose Mourinho's fifth anniversary since he became a manager, an arrestingly short period of time given his amazing achievements, he would not speak outside the television studio. His self-imposed, whipped-up temporary vow of omerta - because he feels he has been misrepresented - does not do any favours. But it may just fuel that passion in his players. And he knows that.

There were his programme notes and he weighed into the debate about football's value - at a time when Chelsea are apologising for over-charging. "Entertainment is about two things," Mourinho wrote with disdain. "It's about quality of the game, and about competitiveness. If a game is 8-0, is this a beautiful game? Not for me."

By the same token he probably wrinkled his nose at Villa's 8-3 Carling Cup victory over Wycombe Wanderers while O'Leary himself weighed in with "my mentality is in no way to let everyone go out there and have a go and win 6-5 and all that crap". Fair enough, although O'Leary was a bit more thoughtful in saying of Chelsea's supremacy: "It's not their fault. It is down to the rest of us to take the challenge to them."

And to his credit, Villa did. With two strikers - despite the absence of Milan Baros and Kevin Phillips - they came to win. Mourinho, speaking to television later, acknowledged as much. "It's a difficult game to celebrate," he said. "It was a difficult game. They defended well but they did not come to defend. They came to play."

It took Chelsea time to wrestle possession and when they did there was a powerful shot from that bull of a player Michael Essien, which he followed up with a header while Damien Duff latched on to a punt forward. He was probably fouled in the area by Wilfred Bouma before shooting. A sense of injustice was heightened when Gareth Barry appeared to clip John Terry's heels. Again no penalty.

Moore then struck. He ran on to a flick-on from Juan Pablo Angel and as Terry challenged, and Paulo Ferreira slipped, and Cech ran from goal, only then to hesitate, Moore was a cool-hand Luke and rattled his shot into the net. Everyone was stunned. Unfortunately, so were Villa.

A free-kick was immediately won by Chelsea and Angel turned to sinner by breaking from the wall, lifting his foot and allowing Lampard's low shot to beat Thomas Sorensen. "The biggest thing is that it's not easy to score against them but we did not ask the question long enough by holding on to the lead," said O'Leary. Indeed, Chelsea levelled in first-half injury time.

After the break Chelsea pressed. William Gallas, unmarked, headed over while Duff half-volleyed a snap-shot which Sorensen tipped away. Mourinho, who throughout the contest had demanded greater tempo, and showed increased irritation, decided to shake it up. He shuffled his pack. On came Shaun Wright-Phillips, with first Duff, and then Essien, going to left-back. It looked chaotic, with Arjen Robben limping off with an apparent dead leg which may rule him out of the Champions' League tie against Liverpool.

Into that confusion finally stepped the substitute Didier Drogba, on for the ineffective Hernan Crespo. He burst through, and was caught by Olof Mellberg. This time it was a penalty. O'Leary protested that Eidur Gudjohnsen had handled in the build-up but Lampard, with that unerring manner of his, slammed the penalty into the corner of the net. Once more the spider had snared its prey. But, this time, only just.