Chelsea

Compared to summers of recent past the last few months at Chelsea have been noticeably quiet, give or take a £35 million contract for London’s finest fat midfielder. With this in mind you would have been forgiven for expecting a low key start to our campaign, one of those hard-fought 1-0 victories that Jose specialised in perhaps?

Nothing of the sort. This weekend’s lesson seems to have been, that unlike his predecessors, Big Phil doesn’t deal in anything but the spectacular.

Not since the days of the tinker man have we so effortlessly brushed past a side in the league, while under Mourinho and Grant it was often threatened a four goal hiding was still something of a rarity. Comparisons with Scolari’s world cup winning Brazilian side, while very lazy, seem unavoidable.

It was a game littered with accomplished performances from Chelsea stalwarts such as Lampard and Joe Cole, yet it was the two new signings that stole the show.

Portuguese international Bosingwa ripped Portsmouth’s left side to shreds, while Deco added an unusual air of calmness to proceedings with incisive passing, neat footwork and finally a thunderbolt of a fourth goal.

In his fluorescent orange attire our human traffic cone of a goalkeeper was required to make a sharp block from an advancing Peter Crouch in the first half, bar this he stayed untested for the duration of the game. Much unlike his opposite number David James.

The only difficulty Scolari now finds himself with is that of how to fit Michael Essien back in the team. With Bosingwa giving such an accomplished and at times terrifyingly attacking performance at right back, it seems as though the default ‘lets shove him in at full back’ move has been ruled out.

Overall. Far, far too comfortable. If Big Phil manages to operate such a well oiled machine when Drogba returns, Anelka throws the toys out of the pram, Ashley Cole berates his first referee of the season and Deco actually gets punished for a horror tackle then he really is a genius.