Gallas and Desailly so mean to us

He said: 'I thought the two centre backs were magnificent.

They were mean. They give you nothing. They are almost inside your shirt. If you turn, they take it off you and they challenge well in the air, winning nearly everything.

'They are both quick, Gallas in particular. On that evidence there is nothing much better than them in the whole of the Premiership. That was on a par with Adams and Keown at their best.

'I have seen Chelsea play against Arsenal and Manchester United and they looked really good. They have won at Charlton and Blackburn, which is creditable, and they have beaten us today - and we think we are a decent side. On that evidence, they are in top form. As a team, they are ahead of us now, a top-four side. They are eight points clear of us and that is a lot by March, let alone September. We have a lot of recovering to do.'

Even more reassuring for Ranieri is that John Terry is recovering from injury and will be pressing to take his place in defence - competition that is healthy for Chelsea, as the Italian coach has further options in attack with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Eidur Gudjohnsen and Gianfranco Zola.

Ranieri said: 'We need three excellent defenders and three excellent attackers. We are playing two or three matches a week and this way the players have time to recover. If Gianfranco's form dips a little, I have another person I can bring in.

'My focus is on getting consistency. I know Chelsea have had a problem with this in the past. I want to achieve this winning mentality. We could play well or not so well, but we must fight in every match. If we do, then I can accept any result.'

The acid test for Chelsea will come in forthcoming fixtures away to Fulham and home to West Ham United, since these more mundane meetings - albeit London derbies - are the ones which Desailly, in particular, has tended to treat with costly contempt.

Newcastle's more immediate concern is their difficult journey this week to Ukraine, where a Champions League match against Dynamo Kiev will look that much more testing on the back of two straight Premiership defeats.

As Gary Speed pointed out: 'We are not defending as a team at the moment and we are letting ourselves down. It's hard to get back into the game when you lose silly goals to a top-class team like Chelsea and we were never going to get back into it.

'We have to go to Kiev and make the most of it because the way things are going we're not going to make the Champions League again. We need to concentrate on getting our League form back, otherwise it will be a hard season for us.'

They will improve once Bellamy regains his sharpness. This was his first start since February, while Andy O'Brien was also returning after injury.