Chelsea's against the odds Wembley resistance hints they won't follow same path as Jose Mourinho's last champions

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It shows how quickly expectations change in modern football that this win, by the defending Premier League champions in just the second match of the season, felt like a moment of unlikely defiance, brave resistance against the odds.

And yet everything we know about Chelsea’s tumultuous summer, and everything we saw when they collapsed at home against Burnley last Saturday, suggests that it was something close to that.

This was not a giant-killing or an upset, but it was a distinct display of digging in deep, an insistence by the Chelsea players they would not be rolled over by a hungry and ambitious Tottenham team. Given the cloud of fear hanging over the club that they may repeat their disastrous title defence of autumn 2015, this felt like a proud refusal to follow the same path. Not this time, not this season.

This afternoon could easily have gone the other way. If last Saturday was perfectly set up for Chelsea to win, only for them to blow it, this was the opposite. Against a Tottenham team desperate to prove themselves and avenge their last two title disappointments. Without the suspended Cesc Fabregas and Gary Cahill, the injured Eden Hazard and the exiled Diego Costa, four of the most important players to their last two titles. And under a blizzard of questions about their summer, the manager, the players and the politics, the constant questions that always surround the club.

That is why it felt, going into this afternoon, that everything, or at least most things, were against Chelsea. And that is why their response was so impressive. Plenty of players here were outside of their comfort zone. Alvaro Morata, Andreas Christensen and Tiemoue Bakayoko, who looked half fit, all made their first Premier League start. Antonio Rudiger only made his second.

That meant that senior players had to step up but that is what they did. Marcos Alonso was the decisive man, effective as ever out on the left while producing the two crucial goals. The first, a 30-yard free-kick curled over the wall and into the top corner of the net. The second, with two minutes left, as he made yet another forward run and zipped his shot underneath Hugo Lloris.

But Alonso was not the only one. David Luiz was drafted into midfield, to make a three-man shield with Bakayoko and N’Golo Kante. He was brilliant, closing down the space from where Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli have done so much damage to Chelsea in the past. He timed his tackles, stepped into interceptions and never gave an inch in the physical battle. Eric Dier could have hurt him with a bad tackle – there were a few from Spurs – but Luiz stood up to it.

It was Luiz who robbed Victor Wanyama with two minutes left to start the attack which ended with Alonso’s winner. So much for a player whose concentration when it matters most is still doubted by some.

But most of all, more than Alonso, Luiz, Thibaut Courtois or anyone else, this was a triumph for Conte. He has gone in the last few weeks from being hailed as the best manager in the world and the king of English football to looking like the latest departure through the Stamford Bridge revolving door.

And yet this win was a masterclass. His switch from the 3-4-3 to a 3-5-2 shut down Spurs through the middle, forcing them to go wide. Chelsea were happy to defend in a 5-4-1 and ultimately Tottenham, just like the FA Cup semi-final here back in April, could not get round them. Last week Conte looked disaffected and anxious in his tracksuit as his team lost. Here he was back to his old self, charging far beyond the boundaries of the technical area, contesting every decision.

When the final whistle went he charged off to the away end to celebrate. And everything that went wrong last weekend, all the politics of the summer, felt very distant. He is still the brilliant manager of a very good team who are still the champions of England. Even if we sometimes forget it.