Ranieri's Rants: Bolton (h)

“We conceded a bad goal. We made two mistakes: we got too deep, too close to Carlo and left their player unmarked. Then, in the second-half, we were too nervous. We were tired, we lost the plot.

“Second-half, everybody wanted to run with the ball. But this is no good. That was the problem. We must play football, be calm. The ball can play better than us in the second-half.

“Well done to Bolton. They closed down all the space very well and played on the counter-attack. It was easier for them to score a goal than for us in the second-half.

“We played badly in the second-half. The last 20 minutes was very dangerous for us. I made changes to try to win the match. I wanted to close down the midfield so I put on Joe Cole in the middle and Geremi because a lot of players were tired.

“Maybe we were a bit unlucky with the last goal but Bolton deserved to win.”

Bolton boss Sam Allardyce, as you can imagine, was delighted with his side: “Maybe we had a bit of luck but they all count.

“We deserve credit for our good performance, not Chelsea’s poor one. We had our backs to the wall, first-half particularly. Once they got that first goal, everybody in the stadium must have thought that maybe Chelsea would take full advantage and score more.

“But you have to take advantage of anything at Chelsea, particularly set plays, which got us back into the game. Second-half, we nullified a very good team on their own ground.

“First-half, possibly we paid them a bit too much respect and invited pressure too much. Half-time, I told them if we get the opportunity to get forward to take it and at least relieve the pressure on our defenders.

“There’s no better time to score than in the 90th minute. It knocks the stuffing out of them and doesn’t give them the opportunity to get back.”