REACTION: YOU PAY FOR MISTAKES

José Mourinho believes our performance at Villa Park warranted a point, but admitted mistakes cost us at the beginning of the second half.

'I think it was a good game. Aston Villa played well, Chelsea played well in my opinion. Chelsea made a mistake you cannot make in something we are very well organised, which is defensive set pieces and the game that was under control with a solid first half changed with that goal in the first minute,' he said.

Mourinho added: 'I think a point each should reflect what happened on the pitch, but you pay for mistakes. We made our mistake and I cannot say that Villa didn't deserve because they didn't make that mistake in their defence.'

'After that Villa were well organised, heart, and had the crowd behind them. Chelsea played with a complete domination of the game but were not scoring a goal. The second goal means nothing for me in the context of the game.

The Blues manager cursed the side's bad luck at having Frank Lampard withdraw after training on Friday, which left him little time to prepare an alternative gameplan, with a three-man midfield consisting of Essien, Mikel and Makelele.

'Our team lost Lampard on Friday, and after training because his injury was in individual work. All the work we did in the week, you know, you have to forget it, and build a team on Saturday to play such a difficult game, he explained.

Defeat leaves us in fourth place in the table with ten points, but Mourinho believes there is no reason to panic so early in the season, especially as the league could be a little more open this season than previous years.

'I don't know, I cannot say. I think there is a big improvement in the teams after the top four, so the big teams lose matches and points because the other teams spent money, bought players, improved their teams.

'Villa is an example but you can find others. Probably because of that the league is open,' he said.

Villa manager Martin O'Neill was keen to express his pleasure at beating a side he described as 'exceptional'.

'They can score in an instant, but they didn't, and I was pleased to hear the final whistle,' he said, adding: 'In defeat Chelsea were brilliant. Obviously I'm delighted for our efforts, we had to play strongly, with a lot of determination and a lot of belief. I think we had that and naturally I'm delighted.

'They changed their system round because frank Lampard didn't play, I thought when they had it, Malouda started to cause a few problems when he picked it up. They've been beaten today but Chelsea are exceptional.'