Stoke City 0 Chelsea 2

Jose Bosingwa and Nicolas Anelka scored to give Chelsea a 2-0 win at Stoke for their sixth consecutive away victory in the Premier League.
Bosingwa's goal was his first for Chelsea and gave the Blues the lead in the 36th minute. Anelka came off the bench to score for manager Luiz Felipe Scolari's team in the 76th.
It was Chelsea's third league win on the road this season and their sixth straight stretching back to the last campaign. The Blues are now unbeaten in 27 league matches overall.
Resilient Stoke battled hard for most of the game but rarely threatened, eventually slumping to their fourth defeat in six league games.
Scolari said his team had fought to get the result because Stoke "were just trying to put the ball in the box every time.''
"It is impossible sometimes to play beautiful football,'' Scolari said. "We have to win the game first. And second, if it's possible to play good football, OK. But it's difficult when we try to play and the other team don't. It's not easy in this situation.''
Bosingwa crossed to set up Anelka's goal, and Scolari praised the player he had worked with when Portugal coach.
"Bosingwa started as a midfielder and when Porto bought him, their coach put him right back,'' Scolari said. "He has the power to go forward 200 times a game - he is an improved right back who got into the national team and now the whole world knows him.''
Stoke had its first attempt on goal in the 36th when Mamady Sidibe's header at the far post forced goalkeeper Petr Cech into a comfortable low-down save.
Chelsea almost immediately took the lead, Bosingwa finally managing to penetrate Stoke's solid defence when the Portugal right back started and finished a clinical move.
He broke down Chelsea's right flank and, after a neat exchange of passes, controlled Frank Lampard's pass on his chest before slotting the ball into the net from an angle despite defender Andy Griffin's attempt to clear on the line.
The 1-0 halftime score didn't quite reflect Chelsea's dominance as Stoke lacked the attacking punch of pre-match guest and former boxing world champion "Sugar'' Ray Leonard.
Chelsea almost went 2-0 up in the 47th when Stoke failed to clear a corner and Florent Malouda found himself alone 20 yards out, but his stinging shot was tipped on to the crossbar by goalkeeper Thomas Soerensen.
Stoke substitute Ricardo Fuller injected some pace after coming on in the 55th minute and the hosts almost equalized just minutes later when Leon Cort's header had to be cleared off the line by John Obi Mikel.
The chance nearly punished Chelsea for failing to convert its superiority into more goals. Anelka's miss from 12 yards after Lampard's neat pass soon after was another example of their wastefulness.
Chelsea eventually extended their lead when Cort failed to clear Bosingwa's cross from the right and Anelka scored from close range after some clumsy defending.
"The second goal killed us,'' Stoke manager Tony Pulis said. "They are a great, great team with good players all over the pitch. They are like red arrows - or blue arrows - attacking all over the place.''
Scolari said Salomon Kalou, who had to be substituted at halftime due to injury, should be fit for next week's Champions League game against CFR Cluj, but that Deco requires "another 14 days'' before he will be available.

Portsmouth 0 Chelsea 4

Chelsea manager Luiz Felipe Scolari selected close to a full-strength starting line-up for his side's visit of Fratton Park this evening, says Goal.com.

The only notable tinkerings were the inclusion Serbian international Branislav Ivanovic in the place of Jose Bosingwa, Juliano Bellitti displaced John Obi Mikel, and Salomon Kalou was also fielded.

Ahead of tonight's clash Harry Redknapp noted that Arsenal loanee Armand Traore was in need of a rest from first team affairs after witnessing him "running on empty in the second half on Saturday [against Manchester City]," so the French wing-back is named among the seven options for the bench, together with England international Jermain Defoe.

This is a reverse fixture of the Premier League tie at the beginning of the season but Pompey still suffered a similar fate as they were outclassed once again by an efficient and emphatic Chelsea side.

Two goals in the first half virtually sealed the match as there are not too many teams who could net three times in 45 minutes, least of all Portsmouth, who are having problems with their positional sense and overall defending, as highlighted during their 6-0 mauling at the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday.

Frank Lampard scored the first, a powerfully converted penalty kick, after Michael Ballack was fouled by Nadir Belhadj in the box.

Just before half-time Florent Malouda, who also scored Chelsea's third goal in their opening Champions League match against Girondins de Bordeaux last week, doubled the Blues' lead when he took advantage of a Kalou pass and sent a shot centred down the goal from the 12-yard line.

After the break it didn't take long for the visitors to inflict more misery on the south-coast club as Kalou provided another assist and Frank Lampard recorded his first brace of the season.

Kalou completed the rout fifteen minutes later when he sent a low left-footed drive from the centre of the penalty area.

Mineiro Signs

Chelsea have signed experienced Brazilian midfielder Mineiro as cover for the injured Michael Essien.
Mineiro, 33, has signed until the end of the season and was able to join the Chelsea playing staff immediately as he was a free agent after failing to agree terms for an extension of his contract at previous club Hertha Berlin.
Chelsea will be without Essien for most of the season as a result of the Ghana star's serious knee injury.
With Claude Makelele leaving the cloub, John Mikel Obi was the only specialist defensive midfielder available to manager Luiz Felipe Scolari.
Mineiro, whose full name is Carlos Luciano da Silva, was a member of the Brazil squad at the 2006 World Cup and had also attracted interest from Arsenal following his departure from Hertha.
Scolari said it would take the midfielder a couple of weeks to get his fitness up to scratch.
"He needs to play some games in the reserve team, and for me it is very good because I have one more player in this position.
"If not I have to put in (Juliano) Belletti or (Paulo) Ferreira, or (Michael) Ballack, and they are not for this position," Scolari said.
"I say to fans of Chelsea, if they remember (Claude) Makelele, Mineiro is the same. Good positionally, a very good marker. He is a man that works for the other players and he is also a good man outside of the pitch."
Mineiro spent 18 months with Hertha, scoring twice in 36 appearances, having previously played solely in his homeland with Sao Paulo, Sao Caetano and Ponte Preta.
While at Sao Paulo he scored the goal which beat Liverpool in the 2005 FIFA Club World Championship.

Deco And Riccy Out

Ricardo Carvalho could be out for a month and Deco could miss two weeks of action.
Riccy limped off during the 1-1 draw with Manchester United on Sunday with a knee injury and the club's medical staff estimate he will be out of action for three or four weeks.
Brazil defender Alex is expected to take his place in the team after he was praised by the Chelsea boss Luiz Felipe Scolari.
He said: "He is a player that is very fast and he smells when the ball is coming. He can read where the ball is going to be and go."
Deco tore a thigh muscle in the warm-up before the Manchester United match but his injury could be covered by the imminent signing of free agent Mineiro.

Chelsea 1 Man Utd 1

Salomon Kalou’s late equaliser salvaged a 1-1 draw for Chelsea against Manchester United on Sunday and extended the Blues’ unbeaten streak at home in the Premier League to 85 games.

Park Ji-sung gave Manchester United an 18th-minute lead in a fiery game at Stamford Bridge, but Kalou headed home a freekick for Chelsea’s deserved equaliser in the 80th.

Referee Mike Riley showed only one of the eight yellow cards to Chelsea, but angered Blues fans by blowing the final whistle after striker Didier Drogba had been fouled on the edge of United’s area.

The bus taking United’s players from the stadium had its windscreen cracked by a bottle hurled by a fan.

The Blues moved up to second in the standings, ahead of Liverpool on goal difference but a point behind Arsenal, who won 3-1 at Bolton on Saturday. United have five points from four games and are 15th in the standings after only one victory.

“I felt we deserved a point,” United manager Alex Ferguson said.“They had a lot of freekicks around the box at the end, but we worked hard and I felt we deserved it. We played with great tempo in the first 20 minutes. The real shame was that we didn’t go for the jugular at 1-0 up. We had control of the match at that point, but we eased off and allowed them to get to halftime.”

United are expected to be fined, but Ferguson didn’t think the game merited the number of cautions.“The game is being screened worldwide. Everyone is watching it and something like that goes on,” he said of the yellow cards. “It was a competitive game but I did not think there was one bad tackle in it.”

Chelsea lost midfielder Deco with an injury during the warm-up, and manager Luiz Felipe Scolari said it made a big difference as his team struggled in the early stages.

“It affected our transition from midfield to attack and for 15-20 minutes, United made the pressure and made a goal,” he stated. “They played very well. After that we had more chances than them, but we missed some chances in front of goal.”

Scolari was amazed that Riley blew for fulltime when the Blues should have been awarded a freekick for a foul by Rio Ferdinand on Drogba.“This was strange for me, for the referee to finish the game at that time,” Scolari said. “But he’s the boss on the pitch and it is his decision and we need to accept that.”

Chelsea lost Ricardo Carvalho after only 12 minutes, while United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar limped off with a leg injury midway through the first half after racing off his line to block a shot from Florent Malouda.

In a lively and entertaining opening spell, both teams missed chances before United took the lead.

Joe Cole shot wide with only Van der Sar to beat and then Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech deflected a shot from Ferdinand over the bar.

United went ahead with a well-worked move that started when Rooney sent Patrice Evra down the left flank and he crossed to Dimitar Berbatov. The forward’s low shot was blocked by Cech, and Park slotted the ball into an empty net.

Like the game between the teams near the end of last season, the match had plenty of spicy tackles and confrontations and Riley lectured several players for repeated fouls.

Chelsea sent on Drogba for the second half to partner Nicolas Anelka and add extra height to the attack, and United countered by bringing on Cristiano Ronaldo for Paul Scholes in the 54th.

Anelka missed an easy close-range chance from Joe Cole’s cross with 20 minutes to go and Rooney squandered a great opportunity to score a second in the 77th when he shot wide from Ronaldo’s pass.

Rooney was partly to blame for Chelsea’s equaliser in the 80th when he needlessly fouled Ashley Cole deep in his own half. Kalou was unchallenged when he met John Mikel Obi’s freekick to head home from close range.