Six of the best from the Blues

DIDIER DROGBA maintains Chelsea will have to fight all the way to retain the Premier League title despite kicking off the new season with a thrashing of West Brom at Stamford Bridge.

Carlo Ancelotti’s men made a mockery of their poor pre-season – last weekend’s 3-1 Community Shield defeat to Manchester United at Wembley was their fourth successive loss – as the newly-promoted Baggies were ripped apart by clinical finishing.

Drogba netted a hat-trick while Florent Malouda added a brace and Frank Lampard also opened his account.

With traditional title rivals United, Arsenal and Liverpool all not in action on the opening day and big-spending Manchester City drawing 0-0 at Tottenham, the Blues certainly laid down a marker of intent to continue where they finished off in last season’s drive towards the title, which saw Chelsea win successive home games 7-0 and 8-0.

Drogba, though, is under no illusions that plenty of tougher tests lie ahead if Ancelotti’s men are to remain the team to beat.

“It is important for us to keep playing the way we did last year, but also trying to improve because it is going to be harder,” the 32-year-old said.

“We are champions and this season is going to be really difficult. All of the other teams are improving in terms of bringing in new players. However, our team is really hungry.

“We may have not signed a lot of players, but we still have quality players and now we have Yossi (Benayoun) and Ramires too.”

Drogba insisted: “It is too early to send a message – the only message it has sent out is to ourselves because it shows that although we are not yet fit, we can still play football.”

Like the other Chelsea players who were in action at the World Cup – including England trio Lampard, John Terry and Ashley Cole – Drogba has not had much time to prepare for the rigours of a new Premier League campaign.

The Ivory Coast striker, who had summer surgery to clear up a long-standing hernia problem, believes yesterday’s performance showed the squad’s character.

“This team is capable of coping with difficult times – when we are in good condition it will be easier for us to win games.”

Ancelotti described Saturday’s result as “nothing special” and believes when everyone is fully fit, Chelsea can further improve.

“We had to give our players who were involved in the World Cup some extra holiday,” the Italian said.

“It was necessary for them to have a good recovery and we knew that we could not put them into the first game of pre-season. Against West Brom, they showed a good condition, maybe not the best, but now they have time to arrive at their best.”

It was not exactly a happy return to Stamford Bridge for West Brom manager Roberto di Matteo, albeit not an entirely unexpected outcome for the former Chelsea favourite.

The Baggies, promoted as runners-up in the Championship last season, did at least try to stick to their passing principles, but tellingly lacked quality in the final third.

With a trip to Liverpool following next week’s home game against Sunderland before then taking on Tottenham, Arsenal and Manchester United all before the end of October, Di Matteo knows there is plenty of hard work ahead.

“We will have to pick the players up and keep going,” he said. “We have another 37 games to go in which to win as many points as we need to stay up. We have got a home game next and hopefully we can bounce back.”

Di Matteo added: “It does not get much tougher than to play your first away games against Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United; that would be tough for any club, never mind for a newly-promoted club like us.

“We will analyse the Chelsea match, the mistakes we made, keep working on the training pitch, try to improve and get better. We also hope we can also strengthen the squad because we are a bit light.”