Chelsea picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Manchester United a couple of hours earlier with a polished 3-0 victory over Manchester City at Stamford Bridge.

United were impressive in their destruction of Fulham and although less flashy, Chelsea were just as professional as goals by England stars John Terry and Frank Lampard and a late effort from Didier Drogba proved too much for City.

Jose Mourinho expects his team to improve when some of his big names vacate the treatment room, but the core of last term's side, plus Andrei Shevchenko, showed they will be the benchmark once again this term.

Blues boss Mourinho has a raft of injuries and had voiced his desire to delay the start of the season by a fortnight, but the 11 he fielded rose to the challenge and led inside 11 minutes.

City were the architects of their own downfall, as a rash foul by Ben Thatcher on Paulo Ferreira handed Arjen Robben the chance to deliver a free kick into the box.

The Dutchman fizzed a wicked ball into the six-yard area and Terry showed more desire than Richard Dunne, as he soared above his marker to head home.

City took 20 minutes to fashion an opening, but it was an effort which should have brought them level. Bernardo Corradi showed his class by delivering a deft touch to set Trevor Sinclair clear on goal but he poked a shot weakly at Carlo Cudicini who gathered with ease.

The visitors were made to pay for failing to convert the chance as, after Nicky Weaver had done well to gather a dangerous cross from Shaun Wright-Phillips, a Lampard shot from the edge of the box took a huge deflection off Dunne before nestling in the bottom corner.

Sinclair, the recipient of a fine pass from Corradi earlier in the half, repaid the favour with a lovely clip over the Chelsea back-line, but the Italian marksman was just unable to connect with an outstretched boot.

Cudicini was embarrassed by John Arne Riise from long range in the Community Shield and Ousmane Dabo and Claudio Reyna tried their luck, but failed to beat the Italian.

Chelsea have a long-range shooter of their own in Michael Essien and he stung the palms of the diving Weaver shortly before the interval.

Dunne had a difficult opening 45 minutes, but he proved his quality at the start of the second with a fine block to deny Ukraine star Shevchenko.

Essien, Lampard and Shevchenko combined superbly to carve out a shooting opportunity for Dutch flyer Robben, but his radar was awry as he shot wide from the edge of the box, as did Corradi for the visitors at the other end moments later.

City's strikers, Corradi and Georgios Samaras, showed on occasions that they could well forge a productive partnership in the new season and the latter's final contribution was to slip away from Ricardo Carvalho before just failing to find his partner in the box.

Corradi's debut turned sour just past the hour as he was sent for an early bath by referee Steve Bennett, following a wild lunge at Essien.

Chelsea are masters at protecting leads and, against ten men, the contest turned into an object lesson in ball protection from The Blues.

City tried hard to ruffle Chelsea's feathers, substitute Paul Dickov received a harsh booking following a tussle in the box, but they were unable to knock the champions off their stride and Chelsea put the game beyond the visitors 11 minutes from time with a goal of real quality.

Wayne Bridge, playing like he had a point to prove following all the speculation surrounding Chelsea's pursuit of Ashley Cole, skipped clear down the flank and pulled back a superb cross for Drogba.

There was still plenty for the Ivorian to do, but he executed a perfect diving header into the corner to cap a professional effort from the champions.

Shevchenko had the ball in the net deep into injury time, but the striker was denied his first Premiership goal by a linesman's flag, but it mattered little as they comfortably claimed three points.

Chelsea	Team Statistics	Manchester City
3	Goals	0
2	1st Half Goals	0
3	Shots on Target	2
8	Shots off Target	5
3	Blocked Shots	1
5	Corners	2
7	Fouls	16
3	Offsides	4
1	Yellow Cards	1
0	Red Cards	1
80.1	Passing Success	70.7
18	Tackles	40
72.2	Tackles Success	80
58.3	Possession	41.7
47.2	Territorial Advantage	52.8

Teams

Chelsea  Cudicini, Bridge, Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Essien, Lampard, Wright-Phillips (Kalou 72), Drogba (Mikel 83), Robben (Diarra 79), Shevchenko
Subs Not Used  Hilario, Mancienne
Booked  Essien
Goals  Terry 11, Lampard 26, Drogba 78

Manchester City Weaver, Distin, Dunne, Richards, Thatcher, Barton, Dabo (Vassell 57), Reyna (Ireland 72), Sinclair, Corradi, Samaras (Dickov 57)
Subs Not Used  Hart, Mills
Booked  Dabo, Corradi, Dickov
Sent Off  Corradi
Goals 

Attendance  41,953

Referee  S. Bennett