Chelsea 4 Portsmouth 0

Luiz Felipe Scolari’s reign as the Chelsea boss has started in an impressive fashion as the Blues defeated FA Cup holders Portsmouth 4-0 in their 2008-09 Premiership opener at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
The Brazilian’s side looked well organised with new signings Deco and Jose Bosingwa fitting in effortlessly and going on to have a successful debut in the English top-flight.
Joe Cole and Nicolas Anelka scored in the 13th and 26th minute respectively as the west-Londoners dominated the proceedings right from the start. Frank Lampard scored from a penalty kick at the stroke of the half time. Deco completed the scoreline with a fantastic strike in the last stages of the game.
Michael Ballack picked out Joe Cole with a superb through ball and the England international timing his run to perfection, put a low finish from the right side of the penalty area to beat David James.
Anelka outjumped Glen Johnson at the goalmouth to head home the second after Bosingwa made a fine cross from right that was kept in by Deco coming in from the opposite flank.
The Blues suffered a blow as Germany captain Ballack seemingly picked up a knock to be replaced by Florent Malouda in 38th minute.
Pompey threatened briefly, but Petr Cech had no major problems in thwarting Niko Kranjcar and new-signing Peter Crouch.
The home side increased their lead to 3-0 when Lampard scored from the spot after Sylvain Distin was deemed to have intentionally handled the ball in the penalty area.
In the second half, France ace Anelka blazed over on two occasions in quick succession, while Joe Cole, after breaking into space in the rival territory, placed his grounder touch wide of the goal.
Pompey enjoyed a brief period putting some pressure on their rivals around the hour mark, but the attempts from Crouch and Kranjcar failed to get past the strong Blues defence. Carvalho and Ashley Cole were particularly impressive in their tackles.
There was a brief glimpse of what the Crouch and Jermain Defoe partnership was all about when a long ball was headed on by the former for the latter to pounce upon with his pacy movement. However, Defoe’s prod was not on target.
Portuguese international Deco, who joined from Barcelona, completed his fine debut with a sweetly-taken long-range shot that James could only parry into the net in the closing stages of the game.