Well that wasn’t too difficult was it?
Another home game, another 4 goals, all that was missing was the three points although on the evidence of this, we might only have to wait until Saturday before we take those from Bolton as well.
Carlo Ancelotti made the changes he said he would, resting the likes of Petr Cech, John Terry and Frank Lampard, with Essien and Drogba on the bench. That gave a bit of match practice to the likes of Alex, Ferreira and Daniel Sturridge. It might’ve given a bit of practice for Hilario as well if he hadn’t been forced off early with a head injury but at least Turnball ended up with a game.
We took control in the 15th minute with a goal from Salomon Kalou – the Ivorian heading home from a Paulo Ferreira cross. Bolton could have equalised through Matthew Taylor although his shot came off Hilario’s face. To say this stunned the Chelsea keeper is a bit of an understatement because he went down before the goal kick to be replaced by the anxiety-provoking Ross Turnball.
25 minutes in and Florent Malouda put us 2 up and with missed opportunities from Ballack and Sturridge to stretch that lead, that’s how it stayed going into the break.
The second half started with Michael Essien in the place of Kalou and Bolton getting the chance to halve our lead through Mark Davies, although Turnball maintained our two goal advantage with a diving save. Daniel Sturridge, who wasn’t exactly taking advantage of his start, missed a couple more chances before being replaced by Didier Drogba around the hour mark.
Branislav Ivanovic’s clearance off the line was enough to convince us we needed to put the game to bed and Deco duly obliged, tucking away Joe Cole’s cross. Didier Drogba finished the game off with his goal in the 89th minute – again supplied by Joe Cole and that was that really.
Job done, roll on Saturday.
TEAMS
CHELSEA: Hilario (Turnbull 22), Belletti, Alex, Ivanovic, Ferreira, Deco, Ballack, Malouda, J Cole, Kalou (Essien 45), Sturridge (Drogba 61)
BOLTON: Al Habsi, Ricketts, Cahill, Knight, Samuel, Muamba, Steinsson (Elmander 45), M Davies, Gardner, Taylor (Basham 64), Klasnic
GOALS: Kalou 14, Malouda 25, Deco 67, Drogba 89
Blue is the colour
