The Stars and Stripes

Champions
By BlueBlood
July 26 2005

Chelsea's US tour kicked off in the silly o'clock hours of Monday morning against AC Milan played in the Foxboro Stadium, Boston Massachusetts in front of a noisy and passionate crowd of about 25,000. Chelsea won the encounter 1-0, courtesy of an Arjen Robben shot from 25 yards in the 13th minute.

Shaun Wright-Phillips made his debut when coming on in the second half and boy did he look the part. Fair enough it was only a friendly and fair enough AC had only been back into the pre season build up for a week or so. Chelsea having only been building up for a couple of weeks more, but it has to be said that Chelsea looked sharper, fitter and played the more fluent football, despite the claims made by 'The Special One' that his squad of 25 were 'tired' due to excesses of double training sessions since reporting back for duty.

Didier Drogba, give him a few more games and let him get the service like he did from SWP and Del Horno, and he will start to find the net more than a daily bowel movement. Whatever JMs methods are and psychi build up, Chelsea certainly looked like they can retain their title and go on and win the Champions League. As I said its only pre-season and I never take much notice of watching and getting anything out of pre-season matches, but I have to say Chelsea DID look good the other evening.

Next up is DC United in Washington in the early hours of Saturday morning and then at a more reasonable UK kick off time is the second game against AC Milan to be played in the Giants Stadium, New York on Sunday. Kick off 7.30pm. Both games are live on Chelsea TV.