Carlo Ancelotti singled striker Nicolas Anelka (10/1 Champions League Top Goalscorer) out for special praise after his two goals and overall impressive performance helped Chelsea to a comfortable 4-1 win at MSK Zilina in their opening Champions League clash.

The Blues boss watched his side stroll to victory in Slovakia on Wednesday as Anelka set up Michael Essien to open the scoring on 13 minutes, before adding two more before the half-hour mark.

Daniel Sturridge made it 4-0 two minutes into the second half, before an error by Petr Cech allowed Tomas Oravec to grab a consolation goal in the 55th minute.

However Ancelotti saw enough evidence from his side, and Anelka in particular, to be heartened that it could be the Londoners’ time to end their long wait to lift the biggest prize in European football (9/2 Chelsea Champions League Outright).

“Every game in the Champions League is hard to play,” said Ancelotti. “We started very well in the first half, we played fantastic football, the second half was different.

“Zilina put more pressure on our defence. The back four did a good match. When you are 3-0 up it’s normal to have more difficulty.

“The key was Anelka, he played a fantastic game. He created space, he had opportunities, he was the key for this game.”

The comprehensive victory, in which Chelsea made it 21 goals already for the season, has placed them firmly at the top of the Group F table (Chelsea 1/6 Group F Winner) on goal difference ahead of Spartak Moscow, who won 1-0 at Marseille.

However, Ancelotti insists they are not trying to break any goal records – they scored 142 last season – as the main aim for the Blues is to simply ‘play good football, to win the game’.

He added. “We are not interested in beating the score from last year because it’s our record, maybe we are not able to improve on our record.”

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