Blades blunted by rampant Chelsea

Chengdu Blades 0 Chelsea 7

Chelsea's cruise through their pre-season tour of Asia continued in Macau today as Luiz Felipe Scolari's side eased to a 7-0 victory against Chinese Super League side Chengdu Blades.

Nicolas Anelka, Solomon Kalou and Frank Lampard handed the Blues a comfortable half-time advantage at the Macau Stadium before Joe Cole, Franco Di Santo and a fortunate Shaun Wright-Phillips wrapped up the second rout in four days.

Paulo Ferreira replaced the injured Jose Bosingwa at right-back, while Alex and Wright-Phillips also came into the side who beat Guangzhou Pharmaceutical 4-0 on Wednesday at the expense of Ricardo Carvalho and Mikel John Obi, with Michael Essien taking over the holding midfield role.

Like at the start of Wednesday's pre-season opener, Chelsea dominated the opening exchanges against the Blades, who currently sit ninth in the Chinese top-flight, and after Kalou and Essien had shots saved by Chengdu goalkeeper Lan Yi, the Blues opened the scoring after 15 minutes.

Wright-Phillips found an unmarked Anelka charging into the area, and after the French striker beat the Blades offside trap, he calmly rounded Lan and rolled the ball into the net.

The lively Wright-Phillips blazed over and Lampard saw his low drive saved before Kalou doubled the Chelsea lead 14 minutes before the break.

Wright-Phillips picked out Anelka on the edge of the Chengdu area and with time and space, the Frenchman turned and fed the onrushing Kalou who scored with ease.

Kalou turned provider seven minutes later as the Ivory Coast international crossed for Lampard to fire into an empty net from the edge of the area after Lan went to ground in a vain attempt to intercept the initial low delivery.

Following five half-time changes, Cole was also introduced shortly after for his first pre-season appearance after missing the opening game due to a lack of match fitness.

Cole made an instant impact two minutes after his 53rd minute introduction as the England midfielder broke clear of the Chengdu backline following an Anelka through-ball before deceiving Lan and passing the ball into the unguarded net.

Six minutes later Argentinian teenager Di Santo smashed home the fifth from close range after the Blades defence failed to clear Carvalho's low cross following good interplay from Cole on the edge of the Chengdu area.

Di Santo was denied a second with 15 minutes remaining as his near-post flick was acrobatically turned away by Lan.

Cole grabbed a second with eight minutes left on the watch with an exquisite close range backheel drag from Essien's low near post cross before Florent Malouda's left wing cross hit an onrushing Wright-Phillips on the chest and looped over Lan a minute later to complete the scoring.

Former Everton and Sheffield United defender Li Tie played 80 minutes for Chengdu, who are owned by the Blades of the Coca-Cola Championship.