The impressive crowd of just under 36,000 that turned up for tonight’s first outing in this season’s Carling Cup certainly can’t say it didn’t receive value for money from this one!

Four Chelsea goals and a display that was frayed enough around the edges to allow the opposition hope until close to the end made for a buoyant evening of cup football - spiced up towards the end by the sideshow that was Eidur Gudjohnsen’s ultimately unsuccessful attempt to record his first career hat-trick
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That would have put to an end a Notts County challenge that Chelsea never really looked likely to lose, but we did always look capable of conceding. We were often our own most dangerous opponents.

A multitude of free-kicks were conceded in dangerous locations as well as a fair smattering of corners. Darren Caskey may not be (how shall we put this?) quite the fighting weight he enjoyed when a Tottenham hopeful - but he does still deliver a testing dead ball and he was a threat throughout.

With Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen feeding off the craft of Damien Duff however, Chelsea were always in possession of sufficient firepower to win the day.

Duff, starting on the left of a midfield four that also included Veron, Geremi and Gronkjaer, was at his twisting and turning best – particularly early on.

With only a few minutes on the clock he almost set-up both Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen and then a spell of sustained pressure finished with him crossing to Hasselbaink’s diving head - keeper Mildenhall saving well.

Caskey almost engineered an opening goal for Notts County, first from a free-kick just wide and then when Tony Barras headed his corner against the legs of Glen Johnson on the line. And the young Chelsea full-back was quickly called on again to save the day.

Some indifferent Melchiot defending allowed Heffernan to run at Marco Ambrosio and although he got an intercepting hand in, the ball made its way back to Heffernan via Platt and the shot towards a keeperless net was kicked away by Johnson. The tone for the game had been set.

Time for Chelsea to roll out the big gun! With 14 minutes gone, Hasselbaink picked up the ball some 25 yards out, picked out the top corner with his sights and executed the delivery as only Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink can.

Gronkjaer then cut in and blasted over before effortlessly racing round the outside of full-back Richardson and crossing for Gudjohnsen to volley just inches wide with considerable power.

Home debutant Ambrosio in goal pulled off a confidence-boosting save at the far post when Platt headed Caskey’s corner on target but he could do little about County’s equaliser as the half hour approached. It was another Caskey ball in, this time flicked on by Platt and Barras smacked it in to sending the 3,000 travelling fans leaping from their seats.

Not for the only time in the game however, Chelsea proved capable of deflating County’s dreams as soon as hope had sprung. With ten minutes to go before the break, Johnson took possession after a quick throw, advanced and then floated the ball into the near post area where Gudjohnsen stooped to bundle it in.

Just before the break, Veron, who spent a lot of the game drifting deep with only limited effect, lined up a free-kick and took the sensible option of rolling it for a Huth bunker-buster which went wide as Barras blocked, almost losing his head in the process.

Hasselbaink was withdrawn at half-time, Mario Stanic making his first appearance of the season behind sole striker Gudjohnsen who was soon in action again – his shot well saved after more good work by Duff.

Then just after the hour came a double penalty incident that more or less decided the game. Babayaro was ruled not to have brought down Baldry in the area despite vociferous appeals and within a blink, Gronkjaer was well away and haring towards the County goal.

As he attempted to hurdle keeper Mildenhall, he went flying. The ref pointed to the spot and followed it up with a yellow card when having seen it as a foul, it could well have been red.

Gudjohnsen stepped forward and drove the ball in low for his 50th Chelsea goal. Gronkjaer failed to recover from the challenge and was eventually replaced by Joe Cole and he almost played in Gudjohnsen straight away.

With ten minutes remaining, the Icelander resisted the temptation to focus totally on that elusive hat-trick when he set up Duff. His first shot was blocked but he failed to do a ‘Mutu’ when the second effort was blocked as well.

Two minutes later, Eidur did see the whites of the woodwork ahead of him after beating the offside but he hit it as well, smashing against the crossbar with a rasping angled drive. His frustration was compounded in the final minute of normal time when Mildenhall pulled off another good save.

Before that though we had seen another two goals. A lofted ball into the area saw Ambrosio go up with substitute Stallard and the Chelsea keeper lost out, appealing for a foul as the County man stabbed home.

We were then prevented from suffering a nervous ending by the endeavours of the two subs. Stanic burst through and saw his shot from 15 yards stopped by yet another good save from the impressive Mildenhall but it came back to Cole who calmly passed it into the corner for his Chelsea first.

Caskey curled just over with the last kick of the game but a two-goal margin was a fair reflection of game. The healthy crowd present was a happy reflection of the current appetite for Chelsea football.

                                                         M-O-T-M= Eidur Gudjohnsen