Chelsea left London's Gatwick airport this morning for their long awaited USA tour, a tour which will see the Blues play three matches in the space of a week.
The majority of the squad travelled this morning, but Sheva, Lamps, Bridge, Shaunie, Carlo and Glen Johnson have been given permission to join the squad at the hotel in Los Angeles from their 'bad' boys holiday in Las Vegas.
The new Director of Football (or shall we call him Jose's successor) Avram Grant was on the plane as were three reserves. Last year Jose took a couple of reserves in Ryan Bertrand and Michael Woods, this time striker Scott Sinclair, Jack Cork midfielder and defender Sam Hutchinson were chosen by Jose to represent the reserves and youth team squads.
An experience and trip of a lifetime!!!!
New signings Steve Sidwell, Tal Ben Haim are on the plane and once Florent Malouda's transfer is complete from Lyon he will join the rest of the squad and may feature in the first game at the weekend.
Pizarro who was knocked out of the Copa America competition on Sunday with his country Peru, has been given time off and won't be joining his new team mates.
The three matches against Club America, Suwon Samsung Bluewings and David Beckham's LA Galaxy are ALL being shown live on Chelsea TV. I will be watching ALL three games and will bring you the news as fast as I can with reports, scores, scorers etc etc.
All Kick-Off times are UK times:
Sunday 15th: Club America - 2am
Wednesday 18th: Suwon Samsung Bluewings - 4am
Sunday 22nd: LA Galaxy - 2am
Please note the UK is 8 hours ahead of California