Chelsea Thrash Milan in Moscow

Nicolas Anelka scored four times as Chelsea tore apart a weakened Milan team in their pre-season friendly. Without Kaka or Ronaldinho, the Italians fell behind to Frank Lampard's second minute opener, and were never in the game thereafter as the Blues emphatically settled the third-place play-off in the Railways Cup.

Milan's miserable display was typified by some comically inept goalkeeping from Zeljko Kalac, whose air-kick allowed Anelka in to roll home his second goal. The Rossoneri were missing a recognized striker - they also deployed the defensive quartet of Mathieu Flamini, Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo and Massimo Ambrosini - and were powerless in the face the dominant Londoners.

Michael Ballack made his first appearance of the pre-season in a strong Blues line-up, following his late return to the squad after Euro 2008 duty with Germany. But it was his central midfield partner Lampard who put Luiz Felipe Scolari's side ahead in the second minute when his curling free-kick was missed by everyone and the ball flew in through Kalac's legs.

It was two in the eighth minute when Anelka latched on to a poor defensive header to fire home low from the edge of the area. The Frenchman then added a third 10 minutes later as Kalac's day went from bad to worse. Shaun Wright-Phillips very nearly headed a fourth soon afterwards as Chelsea sought to make amends for their shoot-out defeat to Lokomotiv Moscow two days ago.

Anelka completed his hat-trick six minutes after the restart when Deco played in Florent Malouda down the left and the winger's cross found his countryman, who headed accurately into the corner of the net.

Remarkably, it became four for Anelka and five for Chelsea in the 58th minute when another flowing move down the left ended with Malouda centering once more for the former Bolton striker to volley home.

The Barclays Premier League runners-up took their foot off the gas in the last quarter but still dominated and the lively Malouda fired narrowly over from long range.