Injury to Hasselbaink spoils Chelsea's day

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Chelsea's record signing, made a distinctly unhappy exit after this pre-season friendly. Having come on at half-time, the striker who joined from Atletico Madrid for £15m this summer, hobbled off at the end with his left ankle heavily strapped.

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Chelsea's record signing, made a distinctly unhappy exit after this pre-season friendly. Having come on at half-time, the striker who joined from Atletico Madrid for £15m this summer, hobbled off at the end with his left ankle heavily strapped.

That was an unfortunate end to a debut that wastypical Hasselbaink. He scored with a well-taken volley after just eight minutes on the pitch having earlier got himself involved in some unnecessary barging and shoving on a Kingstonian player who had fouled Gianfranco Zola.

In short, the capacity crowd saw everything they expected from the Dutchman. Oneseason in Spain with Atletico has certainly not mellowed the former Leeds striker.

Not that the Chelseaassistant manager, Graham Rix, or his fellow coach, Ray Wilkins, were getting unduly concerned about the injury to Hasselbaink, with three weeks until their Charity Shield duties as FA Cup holders.

Instead they simplyexpressed how happy they were with his contribution. Given that Hasselbaink hasreplaced Chris Sutton, who only scored one League goal last season and is now with Celtic, he could hardly be any worse.

The Chelsea manager, Gianluca Vialli, was without six players who were still on leave after Euro 2000 and only played with 10 men throughout the match - "to put the players under a bit of extra pressure, Luca likes doing that," said Wilkins - and fieldeddifferent teams in each half, meaning a chance to look at Chelsea's two other recent purchases.

There has been norummaging around in thesummer sales with EidurGudjohnsen, the Icelandic striker coming from Bolton and Mario Stanic, the vers-atile Croatian international coming from Parma for acombined £9m. Although both showed some good touchesit was an older hand, Zola, who stole the show, setting up all three goals, while Kingstonian's reply came from Sammy Winston's 25-yard effort.

Zola, who has been linked with a move to Turkey this summer, showed he will be more than a useful squad member as Chelsea aim for the championship. His touch is still very much all there, as his lofted pass found Hasselbaink for the first goal, and hiscrosses were inch-perfect for Roberto Di Matteo to score the second and Stanic to head the third.

The tag of most expensive Chelsea player has been something of a burden of late, with the 1998 version GigiCasiraghi out injured for two years and Sutton, who cost £10m, already a distantmemory.

Zola, who in 1996 was then Chelsea's record signing at £4.5, has carried that tag with impressive ease and humility, and if Hasselbaink can achieve half of what the little Italian has done, then Chelsea might yet find themselves within striking distance of thePremiership.

Goals: Hasselbaink (53) 0-1; Di Matteo (57) 0-2; Winston (73) 1-2; Stanic (86) 1-3.

Kingstonian (4-4-2): Hurst; Luckett (Basford, 78) Stewart (Allan, h/t), Harris (Simpson, 78), Beard; Kadi, Pitcher, Bass, Saunders; Winston, Roach (Green, 61) Substitutes not used: Brennan, O'Brien, O'Connor.

Chelsea (4-4-1): Hitchcock; Harley, Lambourde, Ferrer, Percassi; Alexidze, Wooleaston, Poyet, Dalla Bona; Gudjohnsen. Second half (4-4-1): Cudicini; Babayaro, Terry, Thome, Melchiot; Di Matteo, Morris, Zola, Stanic; Hasselbaink.

Referee: G Willard.

Man of the match: Zola.

Attendance: 4,145.