Chelsea picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Manchester United a
couple of hours earlier with a polished 3-0 victory over Manchester
City at Stamford Bridge.

United were impressive in their destruction of Fulham and although
less flashy, Chelsea were just as professional as goals by England
stars John Terry and Frank Lampard and a late effort from Didier
Drogba proved too much for City.

Jose Mourinho expects his team to improve when some of his big names
vacate the treatment room, but the core of last term's side, plus
Andrei Shevchenko, showed they will be the benchmark once again this
term.

Blues boss Mourinho has a raft of injuries and had voiced his desire
to delay the start of the season by a fortnight, but the 11 he
fielded rose to the challenge and led inside 11 minutes.

City were the architects of their own downfall, as a rash foul by
Ben Thatcher on Paulo Ferreira handed Arjen Robben the chance to
deliver a free kick into the box.

The Dutchman fizzed a wicked ball into the six-yard area and Terry
showed more desire than Richard Dunne, as he soared above his marker
to head home.

City took 20 minutes to fashion an opening, but it was an effort
which should have brought them level. Bernardo Corradi showed his
class by delivering a deft touch to set Trevor Sinclair clear on
goal but he poked a shot weakly at Carlo Cudicini who gathered with
ease.

The visitors were made to pay for failing to convert the chance as,
after Nicky Weaver had done well to gather a dangerous cross from
Shaun Wright-Phillips, a Lampard shot from the edge of the box took
a huge deflection off Dunne before nestling in the bottom corner.

Sinclair, the recipient of a fine pass from Corradi earlier in the
half, repaid the favour with a lovely clip over the Chelsea back-
line, but the Italian marksman was just unable to connect with an
outstretched boot.

Cudicini was embarrassed by John Arne Riise from long range in the
Community Shield and Ousmane Dabo and Claudio Reyna tried their
luck, but failed to beat the Italian.

Chelsea have a long-range shooter of their own in Michael Essien and
he stung the palms of the diving Weaver shortly before the interval.

Dunne had a difficult opening 45 minutes, but he proved his quality
at the start of the second with a fine block to deny Ukraine star
Shevchenko.

Essien, Lampard and Shevchenko combined superbly to carve out a
shooting opportunity for Dutch flyer Robben, but his radar was awry
as he shot wide from the edge of the box, as did Corradi for the
visitors at the other end moments later.

City's strikers, Corradi and Georgios Samaras, showed on occasions
that they could well forge a productive partnership in the new
season and the latter's final contribution was to slip away from
Ricardo Carvalho before just failing to find his partner in the box.

Corradi's debut turned sour just past the hour as he was sent for an
early bath by referee Steve Bennett, following a wild lunge at
Essien.

Chelsea are masters at protecting leads and, against ten men, the
contest turned into an object lesson in ball protection from The
Blues.

City tried hard to ruffle Chelsea's feathers, substitute Paul Dickov
received a harsh booking following a tussle in the box, but they
were unable to knock the champions off their stride and Chelsea put
the game beyond the visitors 11 minutes from time with a goal of
real quality.

Wayne Bridge, playing like he had a point to prove following all the
speculation surrounding Chelsea's pursuit of Ashley Cole, skipped
clear down the flank and pulled back a superb cross for Drogba.

There was still plenty for the Ivorian to do, but he executed a
perfect diving header into the corner to cap a professional effort
from the champions.

Shevchenko had the ball in the net deep into injury time, but the
striker was denied his first Premiership goal by a linesman's flag,
but it mattered little as they comfortably claimed three points.