The hosts continued their impressive group stages debut with a fine second-half display which put the Blues under unexpected pressure. But while Chelsea were on the back foot, they restricted the hosts to just one shot on target. And Florent Malouda should have put the result beyond doubt with the clearest chance of the half.

It was a different story in the opening period. Chelsea’s Michael Essien and Malouda were off target in the first quarter of an hour. But they didn’t have to wait long for what proved to be the decisive strike. On 18 minutes, Juliano Belletti cut the ball back from the goal-line for Nicolas Anelka to side-foot his shot beyond the reach of keeper Dionisias Chiotis from fully 15 yards. Left-back Ashley Cole headed narrowly wide on 21 minutes, while Costandinos Charalambidis had Apoel’s only clear sight of goal in the half and volleyed his left-foot attempt well off-target.

Apoel Nicosia were more adventurous as the second half wore on and Chelsea seemed happy to let the Greek Cypriot outfit take the initiative. Just past the hour Savvas Poursaitides’s deflected shot brought a fine save from Chelsea keeper Petr Cech. And only dogged defending denied Apoel further opportunities.

Malouda shot weakly at Chiotis with 15 minutes left after being set up by good work down the right from Branislav Ivanovic. And Charalambidis nearly made Chelsea pay with seven minutes on the clock, only for his diving header to clear the crossbar. A clearly dissatisfied Blues boss Carlo Ancelotti said: “It was an important result but we didn’t play a good match. “It was difficult in the second half because we lost a lot of passes.”