AC Milan 0 - 5 Chelsea | Quadruple for Anelka

Scorers: Lampard (2'), Anelka (5', 17', 50', 57')

Starting Eleven:
Cech (Cudicini 72')
Ivanovic (Ferreira 61'), Alex, Terry (Carvalho 61'), A Cole
Ballack (Deco 45'), Mikel, Lampard
Wright-Phillips (Sinclair 77'), Anelka (Shevchenko 66'), Malouda

The Moscow jinx is broken, and broken spectacularly. Anelka's quadruple and a goal from Lampard helped Chelsea defeat the Rossoneri 5-0 in a fascinating match in the Railways Cup third place playoff at Central Stadium, Moscow . This performance would have boosted the morale of Anelka a dozen times more that when Scolari defended him saying he was played out of position last season. Anelka thanked the coach for the trust shown in him, in an emphatic manner. The fans might not yet have forgiven Nic for the penalty miss about 2 months back, but he is certainly moving in the right direction; towards being forgiven. But, not yet.

Scolari changed the starting eleven from the team that started against Lokomotiv. He used the 4-3-3 with Malouda and Wright-Phillips in the flanks and Anelka as the lone striker. Ballack, playing his first game in this tour, and Lampard played the attacking roles in the midfield while Mikel played the 'Makalele' role. Young Branislav Ivanovic was given a start, and he took the right-back position. The lack of strikers in the Milan starting line-up helped Blues' maintain a clean sheet without much trouble.

Lampard converted a free-kick as early as the 2nd minute of the game, when the ball went through Kalac's legs. Malouda's cross was not cleared well, and fell to Anelka, who scored his first and Chelsea's second in the 7th minute of the game. Chelsea played one way football in the first half and dominated possession.Anelka failed to head the ball towards target from an Ivanovic cross, which would have got him his hat-trick as early as the 21st minute of the game. Milan created some half chances towards the end of the first half, but never came close to scoring.

Deco came in for Ballack after the half-time break. It was a wise decision from Scolari's part as this was the first match Ballack played after the Euro finals, and playing him the whole ninety minutes might have been risky. Malouda worked hard in the left flank. His efforts led to cross in the 50th minute which helped Anelka complete his hat-trick. The same combination helped Chelsea score the fifth goal in the 57th minute, Anelka's fourth. Terry, Ivanovic and Anelka were replaced by Carvalho, Ferreira.and Shevchenko after the one hour mark. Wright-Phillips then saw his shot saved by Kalac, while Deco and Malouda shot wide of target.

Both Sinclair and Ivanovic were impressive. Sinclair has the pace to trouble any defense. And the better news is that both Malouda and Anelka, terribly out of sorts last season, looked a lot better. The Blues' came back strongly after the shoot-out defeat against Lokomotiv Moscow and showed no signs of fatigue, unlike in the last game. It may also be because the aging Rossoneri legs were more affected by fatigue. Chelsea fly back to London now and wait for the first league match against Portsmouth on August 16th.