James howler gifts points to Chelsea

James even took up position in the opposing box during injury time when Paul Merson floated a last free kick on to his head but he was not to enjoy good fortune to go with bad.

Indeed, he had seemed to spend much of the rest of the match analysing and reanalysing the moment which was to eventually cost Villa all three points, when instead he should be reminded of the brilliant stop he produced after only 12 minutes.

Jon Harley sprinted away from Steve Stone on the left and swung a cross on to the head of Gustavo Poyet. The connection was firm and downwards but James pushed the effort away.

On other days, it would have been a match-winning or point-earning stop. Yesterday, however, it merely accentuated the two very different sides of the former Liverpool player.

Chelsea made it a busy first period for Villa 's defence with Hasselbaink and Eidur Gudjohnsen running at them in constant waves of attack, without actually managing to produce a goal.

Claudio Ranieri continues to grow in confidence and exhibited another side of his ruthless streak when he dropped both Dennis Wise and Gianfranco Zola from the starting line-up.

Jody Morris was industrious in Wise's position, without actually having much influence on the match, whereas Harley showed in phases that he might be groomed as a young successor to Zola.

With neither of the two senior men on the pitch, Stamford Bridge was treated to the unlikely sight of their main striker taking corner kicks.

It was the work ethic rather than skill which got them the goal in the end, though, when Hasselbaink chased down Steve Staunton 's back-pass and James kicked his clearance against him.

The Dutchman managed to recover control and his improvised lob was adjudged to have crossed the line - despite Gareth Southgate's clearance - by a referee's assistant who was 10 yards behind play.

Following his embarrassing post-match TV interview on Boxing Day when he once again suffered from his own lack of English and bad translation, Ranieri again declined to comment on the match and instead sent Poyet to talk.The Uruguayan was happy enough with the win, regardless of circumstances and promised that the play-ers know what they are doing wrong away from home and will 'focus and fix it'.

Villa's problems are all up front. Dion Dublin and Gilles de Bilde struggled to make any impact with the Belgian having now returned to Sheffield Wednesday with little hope of making his loan deal to Birmingham permanent .

Colombian striker Juan Pablo Angel has no chance of making his debut before Villa meet Liverpool in two weeks' time due to red tape. Perhaps he will bring with him some divine intervention to match his surname. Inspiration would be enough. Villa could do with it.