Chelsea 4-0 Bolton

Chelsea maintained their 100% home record this season with a comfortable win over Bolton in the fourth round of the Carling Cup.

Saloman Kalou gave the home side the lead, rising to head home an inswinging cross from Paulo Ferreira.

Florent Malouda scored the second, benefitting from a deflection off Bolton's Zat Knight before slotting in.

A low drive from Deco sealed the victory and a header from substitute Didier Drogba rounded it off in style.

The scoreline serves as testimony to a strong, cohesive performance from what was largely Chelsea's second string.

Blues boss Carlo Ancelotti took the unusual step of naming his side early ahead of this match, perhaps as a means of relaxing a group of players with an eye on pulling out the stops to impress their boss.

If this was the Italian's plan, his players responded and were the brighter and more assured of the two sides throughout.

Joe Cole, no doubt buoyed by Ancelotti's praise for his performance in the win over Blackburn on Saturday, and Portuguese midfielder Deco both fired in early shots which, although comfortably saved by Ali Al Habsi in the Bolton goal, highlighted the home side's intent.

The threat was realised moments later as Ferreira found space on the left and swung in a superb inswinging right-foot cross which Kalou met, after losing his marker, to head past Al Habsi.

Before the cheers from the large Stamford Bridge crowd had died down Bolton were almost level.

Gretar Steinsson's free-kick eluded the Chelsea defence before finding its way through to Matthew Taylor with just Hilario to beat, but the goalkeeper blocked superbly.

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" That was a wonderful performance from Chelsea today. I hope they will repeat it again on Saturday "

It was to be the Portuguese's final contribution to the match as a head injury he received in the process of making the save ultimately led to him being replaced by Ross Turnbull.

Chelsea's response to this blow, however, was to double their lead.

Malouda found Kalou in the box and although the cross struck Bolton defender Knight it fell perfectly for the Frenchman, who had only to hammer into a largely unguarded net.

Kalou should have made it 3-0 before half-time when he once again combined with winger Malouda, but the Ivorian's shot when through on goal was parried one-handed by Al Habsi.

Johan Elmander was introduced by Bolton at half-time to spark some life into the visitors, and he almost made an immediate impact.

Unfortunately, Mark Davies was unable to follow up Elmander's deft lay-off with an accurate finish and Turnbull was able to save comfortably.

Chelsea quickly re-assumed their control of the match and twice in the space of two minutes Daniel Sturridge should have scored on his first start for the club.

However, on both occasions when given a clear goalscoring opportunity the ex-Manchester City striker snatched at his shot and fired wide of the target.

It was left to a more experienced head to make Chelsea's progression to the quarter-finals secure, as Deco was given time and space in the box to collect Cole's left-wing cross, control and fire in to the bottom right-hand corner of Al Habsi's net.

With 10 minutes to go, Bolton were denied a chance to register a presence on the scoreline as Ivan Klasnic's shot struck a post and skipped wide.

Nine minutes later, Drogba rose above the Bolton defence to head a Cole cross in to provide the gloss finish to Chelsea's ninth successive home victory in all competitions this season.

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti:

"The first thing is to play well and to win a game.

"It happens we've won with large results recently, but that's not so important. Rather, we want to win the games.

"The team are working very well, maintaining good control defensively and offensively. This is the most important thing for the team, to have a balance."

Bolton manager Gary Megson:

"We didn't play as you need to play against the quality they have.

"It was a poor performance from minute one. We needed to score the first goal, but we were never going to do that with the way we approached it.

"I'm pleased to be playing them again on Saturday. We need to put on a performance."