Sunderland came close to snatching a point from their final league game but still managed to avoid relegation even though they suffered a narrow 3-2 defeat to Chelsea on Sunday.

Sunderland needed to pull off an upset in the final match in order to maintain their place in the Premier League but faced a strong Chelsea line up with manager Guus Hiddink playing almost all of his key players ahead of their FA Cup final next week.

After a quiet opening to the game, Didier Drogba came close to breaking the deadlock midway through the first half but his effort was palmed away by keeper Marton Fulop. Florent Malouda went closest to scoring in the first half but saw his effort hit the bar before rolling out to safety.

Chelsea finally managed to break past the Sunderland defense with Nicolas Anelka scoring his 19th goal of the season two minutes into the second half. Sunderland immediately struck back and restored parity six minutes later as Petr Cech spilled a cross from Grant Leadbitter leaving Kieran Richardson with a simple finish from close range.

Sunderland looked to have done enough to claim a point from the game but Chelsea refused to give up and were rewarded in the 74th minute when Salomon Kalou slotted home from just outside the area.

Ashley Cole doubled the lead with just four minutes remaining and though Kenwyne Jones managed to reduce the lead late in injury time, Chelsea managed to hold on to claim all three points from the game.