Chelsea rediscover their edge in Portsmouth rout

Portsmouth 0 Chelsea 5. Chelsea needed a game like this to recover from their recent run of poor form, and the Blues didn't waste the opportunity to sharpen their goalscoring skills against a demoralised Portsmouth.

Having been dumped out of the Champions League last week by Inter Milan, and with only four points from the last three Premier League matches, Chelsea's emphatic hammering of bottom-placed Pompey moved them into second place, one point above Arsenal and one point shy of leaders Manchester United.

Even so it needed a howler from Portsmouth's 39-year-old keeper David "Calamity" James for Chelsea to get the first of their five-goal haul after a nervous start by the visitors. Just after the half-hour mark Chelsea's Deco looked to have wasted a promising attack with an aimless header towards the Portsmouth goal. But when James went to clear the danger he kicked the air instead of the ball, allowing Didier Drogba to score one of the easier goals of his career.

With James claiming his gaffe had been down to the ball bobbling on a divet, Portsmouth's luck got even worse a few minutes later when defender Ricardo Rocha was carried from the field with a suspected broken jaw after clashing with Chelsea's Florent Malouda. The double-whammy sapped the strength from the home side and the second-half turned into a rout. Malouda bagged a brace of goals in a ten-minute period – Frank Lampard laying the groundwork for both - and Drogba added his second on 77 minutes, holding off the challenge of Steve Finnan to rifle in a shot at the near post. Portsmouth's miserable night was complete in the fourth minute of stoppage time when Lampard rose to head Chelsea's fifth.

As for Portsmouth, their best chance of the night came when Richard Hughes had a free header from eight yards but somehow sent the ball wide.  With Pompey boss Avram Grant at hospital attending to the injured Rocha, it was left to his assistant Perry Groves to speak to reporters: "Ricardo may not play again this season. I thought the challenge merited a yellow card but I only had half an eye on the incident when it happened. There's not too many fit players left in our squad. [But] there's always been a fantastic spirit amongst them and they'll always grind out results for you."

Different emotions for Carlo Ancelotti, who admitted the result was just what the club needed: "We'd lost some confidence in our play in the last few weeks, but we played well here. This performance will improve our confidence," said the Chelsea boss. "We are involved in the Premier League and the FA Cup, so maybe eight or nine games until the end of the season, so we need to maintain this period and this spirit to play." ·