Chelsea 0 Birmingham City 0
On the sort of afternoon when titles cannot be won, but can certainly be lost, Chelsea endured further frustration as their enduring Premiership shortcomings were exposed by Birmingham City.
In short, you can spend £110million on a new squad, but you evidently cannot completely solve Chelsea's inability to finish off dogged opponents overnight, even at home.
Birmingham were incredibly tenacious at Stamford Bridge, with Robbie Savage and Stephen Clemence excelling in central midfield as they outplayed, let alone outfought, their far more illustrious opponents.
While Joe Cole hit the post, keeper Maik Taylor was otherwise equal to everything else that Chelsea threw at him as they missed the chance to significantly narrow the gap on Manchester United and leaders Arsenal.
There may be quality in abundance at Stamford Bridge but, above all, where Claudio Ranieri's side still fall as short as ever before is in their inability to win when not at their best.
Having lost at home to Liverpool 11 days earlier, their brief renaissance with four goals against both Leicester and then Watford in the FA Cup was undermined.
Birmingham may have been depleted by injuries and the absence of on-loan Chelsea striker Mikael Forssell for this fixture, but they remained undaunted.
Indeed, they immediately took the game to Chelsea, with Damien Johnson forcing Carlo Cudicini into a neat save after he had cut inside Wayne Bridge.
Chelsea began to carve out openings of their own, with Maik Taylor denying Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Glen Johnson.
However, the home side were being denied the space in midfield from which to launch anything other than long-range efforts.
Cole almost turned the game with a moment of individual ability as his neat dip of the shoulder past Olivier Tebily took him into a shooting position, but his curling effort struck the far post.
Otherwise, Chelsea were too often guilty of over-elaborating, with Jesper Gronkjaer particularly guilty of running down blind alleys.
Roman Abramovich is supposedly a patient man who does not expect his new club to win the title in their first season together. On this evidence, it is just as well.