Chelsea's blue period over

BLUE was not the colour, but for once that major detail was of minor importance to Chelsea fans yesterday. When Gianluca Vialli finally ran out to begin his active service in a Chelsea shirt at the start of the second half, it was yellow not blue in hue. To the thousands of Chelsea hard men here, the Italian could have come out in the nude and, given the collective pleasurable moan they exhaled, it was as if he had done just that.

For the record it can be reported that Vialli's first touch in a Chelsea jersey was an assured short pass to Dan Petrescu.

The sight of Vialli was the high point of a glorious, if slightly surreal, day for Chelsea followers. Pre season football usually has an artificial feel to it with teams and tackles often under strength, but after 28 minutes of yesterday's Umbro International Tournament final the London club found themselves two up against Ajax.

Now Chelsea, of course, are in the midst of a remarkable transition, but even bearing that in mind, such a scoreline takes a bit of getting used to. The fact that they then maintained it for the remaining 72 minutes was all the more creditable. Ajax may have been missing six significant individuals from their European Cup Final defeat against Vialli's Juventus in May, but as footballing wisdom has it, all you can do is beat the opposition.

Ajax missed a few serious chances. Kiki Musampa - whose goal had seen off Manchester United on Saturday while Chelsea put out Nottingham Forest on penalties - was the principal culprit and could quite plausibly have had a first half hat trick.

Chelsea's opener was created by Di Matteo, who ran things for a while, although he was prone to making the odd slap dash pass. The one that picked out Wise in the box did not fit into that category. Wise brought it down and poked it hard past Van Der Sar.

Di Matteo also supplied the ball for the second when his clever control and swift, incisive pass plucked out the invading Petrescu. It was a typical Chelsea wing back surge and Petrescu sent it first time beyond the goalkeeper.

Chelsea's manager, Ruud Gullit, who revealed that he will make his first pre season appearance in Thursday's game against former club Sampdoria in Genoa said: "I was pleased with the team performance. Technically and tactically they did very well - just what I asked them to do.

"But while these victories are nice they do not mean anything because it's only pre season.

"I have not set any goals for myself and the team to reach. Our thoughts must be concentrated only on the first game against Southampton and after that we must look towards the next team we will play."