Chelsea 1 Everton 1: Cahill's bicycle kick puts brake on Grant's winning streak

Delivering exciting football, as Avram Grant is discovering, is a splendid idea as long as you make sure your team win the game too. Chelsea's excitement factor was waning considerably yesterday when Tim Cahill's overhead kick levelled the score in the last minute and made the home side wish they could have been boring and victorious instead.

The notion of exciting football was seized upon by Grant in those desperate, chaotic days in September when no one could understand why he of all people had been brought in to replace the most charismatic manager of his generation. On days like these that promise sits upon Grant like a curse. He may be the man charged with bringing pulse-quickening football to the post-Jose Mourinho era but he still moans about an injury crisis like any other manager who finds his back against the wall.

A goal to the good, thanks to Didier Drogba, Chelsea found themselves seeing out the last few minutes with a defensive five that, Grant pointed out, included none of his first-choice defenders and a second-choice goalkeeper. That was not all down to injuries – Grant left Ashley Cole on the bench and no one knows who his favourite right-back is – but the absence of John Terry and Ricardo Carvalho was telling. Chelsea are now another two points further away from Manchester United.

They are third in the Premier League but after four straight victories under their new manager – including six goals at home to Manchester City – yesterday it was fair to concede that maybe the stylistic changes promised by Grant are still some way off. The only thing more complex than figuring out how to change Chelsea into the club everyone loves to watch is making sense of Grant's post-match explanations, which seem more arcane the worse the result.

He claimed yesterday that "we dominated the game for 90 minutes". He added: "We created a lot of chances, the other team did not. They scored from one good chance." There was, Grant said, "raised expectation" for his players, although he can blame himself for that. Once upon a time Chelsea would win 1-0 and Grant's predecessor would say afterwards they were the best team on the planet. Nowadays not even 1-0 is enough.

It will overshadow the achievement of Everton, whose equaliser was beautifully taken by Cahill for his third goal of the season, having recovered from a broken metatarsal last month. The Australian had his say about Michael Essien too after the Chelsea midfielder ran his studs down Leon Osman's leg and was fortunate to get away with a booking.

"I was behind Ossie and I heard the crunch," Cahill said. "If he [Essien] has gone in a bit high he'll know and he'll apologise later. He is known for a few dodgy tackles. Ossie's still walking and that's the main thing. Everyone has a dodgy tackle from time to time in football as long as he knows what he has done."

Even without Mikel Arteta, Andy Johnson and Leighton Baines, David Moyes has a side of typically British strengths – strength and tenacity above all. The Everton manager poured praise on his England defender Joleon Lescott, whom he named as one of his side's best players along with Joseph Yobo and the goalkeeper, Tim Howard. Lescott, however, might not have inspired complete confidence in Steve McClaren in the seconds leading to Drogba's goal.

In those moments, in the 71st minute, Salomon Kalou hit a corner to the near post and Drogba simply ran away from Lescott and Lee Carsley to head the ball past Howard from a tight angle.

"I always thought we were in it," Moyes said. "We were gritty and hung on." He took off Yakubu and Phil Neville off at half-time but it was Cahill who did the trick in the end.

The substitute James McFadden drilled in a shot which cannoned off Juliano Belletti and Cahill inside the area before the Everton man, with his back to goal, executed a textbook overhead kick to beat Carlo Cudicini from close range. By then the centre of Chelsea's defence was being marshalled by Alex da Costa and Tal Ben Haim, which is no-one's idea of a safe back line.

Carvalho's departure half an hour into the match was a major blow for Grant – turned upside down while challenging Yakubu for a header, the Portuguese landed awkwardly and was barely able to walk thereafter. Later in the first half Howard pulled off a brilliant one-handed save from Frank Lampard's close-range shot although in Stamford Bridge no-one was requiring oxygen from the St John's Ambulance on account of too much excitement.

In fact the only out-of-the-seat moment in the first half came when Drogba conspired to miss a chance from five yards out. There was a great, barnstorming run from Wayne Bridge, a cut-back from Shaun Wright-Phillips and then, with the goal at his mercy, the Ivorian striker seemed to collapse involuntarily. Proof that even the great Drogba can let the excitement get to him at times.

Goals: Drogba (71) 1-0; Cahill (89) 1-1.

Chelsea: (4-1-4-1): Cudicini; Belletti, Alex, Carvalho (Ben Haim, 29), Bridge; Mikel; Wright-Phillips (Kalou, 64), Essien, Lampard, J Cole; Drogba. Substitutes not used: Hilario (gk), Shevchenko, Pizarro.

Everton (4-4-1-1): Howard; Hibbert, Yobo, Lescott, Valente; Cahill, Carsley (Carsley, 73), Neville (McFadden, h-t), Pienaar; Osman; Yakubu (Anichebe, h-t). Substitutes not used: Wessels (gk), Jagielka.

Referee: A Wiley (Staffordshire).

Booked: Chelsea Belletti, Essien, Mikel. Everton Neville.

Man of the match: Howard.

Attendance: 41,683.