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Chelsea 6-0 West Bromwich Albion
Match Reports, 19:36, August 14, 2010 ,
Didier Drogba's opening day hat-trick helps champions Chelsea to a 6-0 demolition of newly promoted West Brom at Stamford Bridge.
If Blackpool's 4-0 away win at Wigan had raised hopes of a shock at Stamford Bridge then defending champions Chelsea took just six minutes to end the hopes of Baggies fans and went on to obliterate any hopes they had of easy Premier League survival.
English goalkeeping has taken a battering over the summer and Scott Carson did the union no help whatsoever by fumbling Didier Drogba's weak free-kick to Florent Malouda, who gladly opened his account for the season. To their credit, the Baggies forged their way into the game and actually began to look like taking something from it with Graham Dorrans looking particularly lively. However, Drogba put that theory to bed on the stroke of half time with a free-kick that, again, Carson should have done better with and suddenly Chelsea had a comfortable lead at the interval.
The game could then go two ways after the break, Chelsea would go on to an opening day rout or West Brom would somehow get themselves back in the game. Suffice to say, it was the former. Ten minutes after the break and Drogba had confirmed the direction the game would take as he smashed into the roof of the net from six yards after John Terry's header had been cleared off the line. The defending went from bad to worse for the Baggies after that, and so did the scoreline.
Frank Lampard notched his first of the season and Drogba confirmed his hat-trick on 69 minutes with a superb curling effort after Ibanez and Tamas gave him acres of space to line himself up.
The horrible homecoming was already confirmed for Roberto Di Matteo before Florent Malouda struck the final nail in the coffin in injury time. Carlo Ancelotti will be delighted that his side's pre-season woes have been swept away on the opening day, I'm not sure the rest of the Premier League will feel the same. Chelsea top of the league, and in ominous form.