Grant Relieved as Chelsea Breeze Past Hull

A smile broke on the face of Avram Grant as Chelsea scored their 4th goal as the KC Stadium versus Hull last night.

Although the championship side were very sprited in the first 15 minutes of this clash, Chelsea soon took control of this cup and opened their defense of the League cup with a comfortable win that was never in doubt.

On a day when the headlines about Chelsea were about the speculation of whether Marco van Basten had been recriuted for the blues, the players shrugged this off with a professional display. Chelsea had made 4 changes to the side that was woefully inept agaisnt Manchester United on Sunday. In came Julliano Belletti for Paulo Ferreira, Steve Sidwell for Jon-Obi Mikel, Claudio Pizarro for Andrei Shevchenko and Shaun Wright-Phillips (who was unlucky to be dropped in the first place) for Joe Cole.  

Chelsea started well and were denied a clear penalty in the 3rd minute when Salamon Kalou hit a shot to see Hull defender Damien Delaney blatantly handball the ball clear. This would be the only luck Hull would have on the night.

Still, Chelsea had to wait until the 37th minute for thier first goal of the evening. Shaun Wright-Phillips sent a cross from the right of the penalty area and waiting for it was a grateful Scott Sinclair, who slotted home with a skillful shot. At the start of the second half, the visitors started brightly in a hope to put this cup tie away.

They duly achieved this in the 48th minute when Pizarro broke to the by-line and sent an ariel ball back into the box. Kalou had his revenge on Delaney by rising to meet this ball with a header, beating the defender in the air, although delaney thought he had scored an own goal. Four minutes later, Steve Sidwell made it three with a great stike from outside the box. this was his first goal for Chelsea also. To wrap up the rout, Kalou recieved a pass from Joe Cole to score with his left foot in the 81st minute.

Avram Grant was truly smiling after this performance. I wonder if this team will play like this against Fulham on Saturday to continue his good mood.

Teams:

Hull City: Myhill, Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Delaney, Livermore, Ashbee, Okocha, Elliot (Garcia,53), Pedersen (Featherstone,73), McPhee 

Chelsea: Cudicini, Belletti, Ben Haim, Terry, A.Cole (Bridge,67), Wright-Phillips (J.Cole,49), Essien (Makelele,73), Sidwell, Sinclair, Pizarro, Kalou