Middlesbrough boss Gareth Southgate paid tribute to striker Mark Viduka after seeing him come off the bench to hand him a first Barclays Premiership victory with a 2-1 win over Chelsea.

Southgate had to tell the Australian international on Tuesday he would not be starting the game, but got the perfect response when he blasted home a last-minute winner.

The manager said: "It is incredibly difficult when you have played alongside somebody, but I have said all along, I will explain decisions like that.

"I did not try to kid him that I was resting him or anything like that. We wanted to play a particular way.

"He is a player of great quality and he showed tremendous character to respond in the way that he did."

Boro looked dead and buried when, after Andriy Shevchenko had put the champions ahead with his first Premiership goal on 16 minutes, they went for the kill.

Salomon Kalou should perhaps have made it 2-0 two minutes later, but when Frank Lampard hit the bar with a 62nd-minute header, the Teessiders were hanging on.

However, Southgate threw on Viduka and influential midfielder Lee Cattermole, and after defender Emanuel Pogatetz had levelled with an 80th-minute header, the former Leeds hitman took centre-stage.

Chelsea failed to clear a Stewart Downing cross and Viduka pounced to power a close-range shot past Carlo Cudicini.

Southgate said: "We knew we had players on the bench that could get the crowd going again and could alter the face of the game.

"Obviously, we did not expect it to turn out quite the way it did, but Mark Viduka's contribution epitomised it really because having had to say to him yesterday that he was not going to start, his response was brilliant.

"The way he came on and affected the game was first-class."

While Southgate celebrated, opposite number Jose Mourinho was left to contemplate what might have been.

Mourinho said: "Overall, the performance was not good, the team did not play well. They were too passive, reacting just to the game - when they scored the first goal, you had a reaction.

"We were not leading the game. There are no excuses."

It was Chelsea's second successive league defeat on Teesside, but their manager insisted last season's encounter had little bearing on the latest result.

He said: "That has no relation. The game was easy to win. We were winning 1-0 with the opponent not especially good, a lot of space to play, easy to have the ball.

"The pitch was fantastic - last season, the pitch was a disgrace - this season the pitch was fantastic to pass the ball, to have the ball, to make the ball run.

"That had no relation. It was just a good example of how you cannot play away from home, especially in this country where there is alway