Chelsea are striking everyone as ominously strong again. They appear to have corrected their habit of conceding goals at set pieces and, with it, their vulnerability away from home.

After two successive away league defeats, Chelsea can now boast two clean sheets against Bolton, whose dead-ball repertoire has caused problems for even the best defences. That should please Carlo Ancelotti even more than the glut of goals, for the home side were handicapped by having to play with 10 men for the whole of the second half after Jlloyd Samuel's dismissal.

After leaking eight goals to Chelsea in the space of four days, Bolton will be glad to get back to playing less stellar teams once a week. So will Jussi Jaaskelainen, without whom the score might have reached double figures.

"Bolton played a strong match in the first half and we had to keep up our concentration," said Ancelotti. "I am very happy because this was an important win. It was our aim to still be on top of the league when Manchester United come to play us next week, although, before that, we have to think about Atletico Madrid in the Champions League."

Bolton have no such worries and there were chances at both ends in a surprisingly open first half, with Jaaskelainen denying Didier Drogba on three separate occasions, and Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander going close for the home side, though all the excitement came right at the end. Just as a single minute of stoppage-time was being announced, Bolton lost concentration and let Chelsea come storming through the middle, swiftly turning defence into attack through Deco and Nicolas Anelka, and getting Drogba in on the move, in space behind the home central defenders. Bolton could only chase and as Drogba entered the area and shaped to shoot, his heel was clipped by Samuel.

The Chelsea striker predictably collapsed in a heap, though he did not deserve the chants of "cheat" aimed at him by the Reebok crowd. Dramatist, yes, but a foul had been committed. "I would say it was a soft penalty, but, fair play to Chelsea, they engineered it well," said Gary Megson.

"Drogba moved the ball to his left and Jlloyd couldn't get at it." Samuel saw straight red and trudged towards the tunnel, while Frank Lampard scored from the penalty spot with a neat shot, low into the left corner.

Chelsea just about deserved their interval lead, yet going behind in such a manner was slightly cruel on Bolton. Although Gary Cahill made a couple of rare and potentially expensive mistakes at the back, they had denied Chelsea any clear-cut chances from open play. But while it might have looked as though the visitors were running out of attacking ideas, that was precisely the trap into which Bolton fell. This was nothing like the one-sided rout at Stamford Bridge in the Carling Cup in midweek, but Bolton learned, again, that you cannot take your eyes off Chelsea for a second.

Bolton had to reorganise for the second half and brought on Paul Robinson and Ricardo Gardner. They displayed more urgency as they set off in search of an equaliser, yet, inevitably, left gaps at the back for Chelsea to exploit. This they did and Jaaskelainen made three more saves from Drogba before Deco took Anelka's pass and nonchalantly stepped around Robinson to make the points safe with half an hour left.

Mercifully for Bolton, those minutes passed fairly uneventfully, with only a late Branislav Ivanovic goal from Ricardo Carvalho's exquisite cross underlining the quality difference until Drogba finally beat Jaaskelainen to give the scoreline a familiar look.

"We got beat 4-0 and I still thought we were terrific," said Megson. "We matched them in the first half. Chris Basham on Michael Ballack, Chung-Yong Lee on Michael Essien. If we can play like that against teams who haven't spent £200m on players, we'll get some decent results."

- PAUL WILSON at the Reebok Stadium

Sunday Independent