George Burley said that he doesn't blame Marcus Bent's penalty miss during the 0-0 draw with Chelsea for Town faileing to take the three points. Bent's first half kick was saved by visitors' keeper Carlo Cudicini.

The Town boss said of the miss: "Penalties are one of those things. Even Alan Shearer misses them!

"Credit to the goalkeeper for the good save. He did well to palm it over the bar, often you see keepers turn the ball into the net in that situation. Marcus is the man in form, he has scored ten goals for us and wanted to take it."

Burley felt that his side battled well and deserved all three points: "We knew we would have to be at our very best to compete against a world-class team and we did exactly that.

"In the end I was disappointed not to get the three points. Their keeper made three or four very good saves, we missed a penalty and like the Aston Villa game we had the chances to win.

"We showed that battling qualities which you need to stay up. We struggled in midfield on Saturday and knew we would have to play it tight in there today, and all credit to the team.

"The back four were outstanding, we worked hard up front and did well in midfield. It's all about results but we have to battle against teams which may have better players."

Chelsea boss Claudio Ranieri felt it was a bad game for his side but feels that there are too many matches for Premiership sides: "We want always to win. Today was a poor game, but I thought the players were very, very tired.

"It is impossible to play two games in three days, only horses can do it. Carlo made a great save from the penalty but we made too many mistakes with the last pass to score a goal.

"There was only will on the pitch for us, but not a lot of skill. We will always keep fighting for fourth place and it's always bad when you don't win but the performance was OK."

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