Vitesse 1-3 Chelsea: Initial Reaction

The Chelsea preseason machine rolls on, the early goal leaving hardly any doubt about what today's outcome will be.  A few shaky moments early, and a second half that at times lost its way in terms any pretensions of entertainment, but overall, yet another good outing from the boys in Blue.

A few thoughts:

• Mourinho used all the subs available on his bench today.  Lovely to see all the young kids getting another run out, as the latest senior World Cup returnees were not quite ready to go yet.  Drogba, Mikel, Hazard, Courtois were all there on the non-playing bench as witnesses.
• Nemanja Matic has had a bit of an underwhelming preseason so far, but today he showed up in full force, capping off his performance with a goal that started with the turnover he himself forced in midfield.
• Diego Costa's hot start continues with two assists and he won the free kick for the third.  Unselfish.  Excellent decision-making.  Lovely turn on the first goal (albeit probably offside).  Decent burst.
• Fabregas's decent starts continues as well.  Lovely free kick goal.
• Cesar Azpilicueta played at least three different positions today (DR, DL, ML).  The clone army is slowly coming together.
• Four slightly negative things:  set piece defending clownshoes, especially in the first half; fell asleep at the end of the game on Vitesse's goal; Salah continues to be Salah; Oriol Romeu managed to fit at least two basic errors into his few minutes of pitch time.
• Well done, everybody.