Seattle Sounders 0 Chelsea 2

So, with the summer’s first pre-season game under the belt, what have we learned? Well, never let an American sing the English National Anthem, for a start…

On a more serious note, Ancelotti said before the game against the Sounders that he wanted to try something different. He certainly did, lining up the starting 11 in a 4-4-2 diamond (we haven’t seen that for a while) in the first half, with Deco in a holding role. Whilst by no means a bad performance, I suspect he might not have entirely liked what he saw – the side was almost entirely devoid of width, with Malouda largely playing inside and only Bosingwa occasionally overlapping down the right.

It was the Sounders who started the better, their superior fitness and match-sharpness evident, but the American side was unable to cause any real problems for Chelsea’s back four. As the first ten drew to a close, Chelsea launched perhaps their first meaningful attack with Malouda hitting a thirty yard ball up the pitch to Sturridge who, despite an awkward first touch, managed to turn and bend a perfectly placed shot past Kasey Keller and into the bottom right hand corner. A good start from the new man…

Throughout the first half Sturridge looked confident and had the willingness to try things, but it took longer for the central midfield to get into the game. Seattle’s centre-half pairing seemed willing to help out however – you could regularly park several buses between them – and it wasn’t long before Deco was picking out passes to find the runs of Sturridge and Anelka, who both spurned chances to add to Chelsea’s lead. When the going is easy, Deco looks good…

Assisted by sloppy play from Chelsea’s defence and Deco being no Makalele, a period of Sounders pressure followed, with Freddie Ljungberg clearly a class apart from most of his teammates. The Swede made a couple of threatening runs from the right and forced a good save from Cech from a freekick, but the Sounders never really looked like hitting the net.

As if to absorb the pressure, Chelsea embarked on some good possession football, with Sturridge eventually unlocking the Sounders defence with a fine reversed pass through to Anelka, who duly cut the ball back to Lampard to score from five yards. I could comment on Frank’s unerring ability to find space in the box, but we’ve heard it all before. Two nil.

The second half saw nine changes with only Ballack and Lampard kept on (Frank ended up playing the full 90) and the structure of both the Chelsea side, and the game, seemed to fall apart. Huge space in midfield for both sides resulted in surprisingly few goal scoring opportunities at either end, although Hilario was determined to bring more excitement to the game with some exquisite flapping. Chelsea’s front three of Pizarro, Shevchenko and Di Santo was a little confusing – Shevchenko was dropping too deep for my liking – and most of Chelsea’s attacks petered out once they reached the last third.

It was good to see Hutchinson, Di Santo and Sinclair get a run out, and while Hutchinson made some good interventions in the last twenty minutes I suspect Di Santo and Sinclair will be looking to have more of an impact in other pre-season games once they’re more into their stride. It will be interesting to see what becomes of Pizarro and Sheva (who did make a good few touches and somehow looked quicker than normal) over the next few weeks – I’m yet to be convinced that they still have the quality to make an impact over the coming season.

Clearly the aim of pre-season games – and especially the first one – is to increase the fitness of the squad, and from that perspective the Sounders provided perfect opposition. The team played well without really excelling, but that doesn’t matter. On the plus side, Sturridge looked good and is sure to get another run out over the next week. Aside from getting to know his players that little bit better however, I’m not sure what else Ancelotti will have learned – although hopefully he’ll realise there’s very little point in playing two upfront if you’re not going to support them down the wings (it was telling that Chelsea didn’t have a corner until the 54th minute, by which point we’d switched away from 4-4-2). Against more stubborn opposition, just picking passes through the central defence will look one-dimensional. We’ve been there before…

One final point – the Sounders’ play in a remarkable stadium (they share it with NFL team the Seattle Seahawks) and their fans, whilst not sounding quite the same as their English counterparts, made quite a racket throughout the 90. There won’t be many teams playing in front of 65,000+ crowds this pre-season. Good to see the game growing in popularity stateside. You certainly get the impression that Chelsea visiting was quite a big thing for both American football fans and the players alike - you can read some of the Sounders’ players commenting how they found playing Chelsea here.

bridgeviews man of the match: Daniel Sturridge. His first touch looked suspect occasionally, but his confidence, willingness to try things and well taken goal are encouraging. If I was Di Santo, I’d be concerned.