Soccer: Chelsea - 3 Portsmouth - 0 A populous squad is of scant help when anxiety seeps into every corner of a club. Claudio Ranieri shuffled his line-up yesterday, but the team still looked as if they were dealing with that 4-2 loss at Charlton.

In the first half particularly, Chelsea put each move together fumblingly, like men reading the instructions for self-assembly furniture.

A tough period for them was even harder on the spectators, yet a side with pretensions to the championship has to undergo afternoons of this nature. Although Chelsea were eventually loose enough to record chic and exciting goals, they will congratulate themselves at least as much for overcoming their strangled start.

Since Portsmouth are without a win in their away matches in the Premiership and have not scored in any of them since September, Ranieri's team will not be preening themselves over the result. Pleasure may lie more with the fact that Wayne Bridge scored his first Premiership goal for Chelsea and Geremi opened his account at the club.

In addition to its technical merit, the breakthrough by the left-back in the 63rd minute had a tang of reprisal about it. The visiting fans had taunted the former Southampton player from the start and their throats must have constricted when Bridge bounded into the area, controlled Geremi's pass on his chest, held off the substitute Sebastien Schemmel and drilled the ball into the far corner of the net.

The sight of the impressive Steve Stone going off with a hamstring injury when the match was goalless ought to have pained Portsmouth's followers more deeply. As the Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp sighed, the loss of him let Chelsea, and Bridge, surge forward.

The visitors might be too weak to remain afloat in the Premiership and at present several of their best players are missing. Thanks to the craven clause that is so scandalously permitted by the authorities, Chelsea could also stipulate that Alexei Smertin, on loan to Portsmouth, took no part in this game.

The Stamford Bridge club are not alone in making that provision and it is unreasonable that a manager who believes a particular player is not good enough for his purposes can also insure against an embarrassing repudiation of that opinion.

All the same, this is not to reproach Ranieri, whose position at Chelsea is exacting. The gossip that Sven-Goran Eriksson will replace him was only silenced yesterday because of fresh rumours that it is actually the Spain manager Inaki Saez who is to be given his job,

The one certainty is that Ranieri must triumph if he is to survive and of late, he has been able to do no more than endure. "We knew December was a bad month for us," Ranieri said, "and I am sure it will be better in the new year." Juan Sebastian Veron's back injury needs three more weeks of rehab, Damien Duff's shoulder could be healed in a fortnight and Hernan Crespo's sinuses will be unblocked long before then.

Portsmouth might have cracked Ranieri's stoic patience. They could have been ahead in the 48th minute when Yakubu Ayegbeni's cross eluded Gallas and Stone stabbed a shot that Neil Sullivan blocked. The goalkeeper, taking part because of Carlo Cudicini's thigh injury, dropped a Patrik Berger free-kick when Chelsea were 2-0 in front, but Arjan de Zeeuw's attempt was kicked away by John Terry.

Ranieri's defence did not face a severe test and the manager, claiming he was merely adjusting his selection over a demanding programme, could deny that Marcel Desailly had actually been dropped. In time, though, he will have to reveal whether he still has faith in his veteran captain.

The trust in Frank Lampard is beyond doubt. He performed well while others waited for events to turn in their favour. He smacked a 25-yarder against the post in the 40th minute and his adventurous run on to Eidur Gudjohnsen's pass two minutes later promised a goal until the attentions of Richard Hughes hustled him into striking only the side-netting.

Once Chelsea were in front, Adrian Mutu rose to meet the midfielder's standard and to prompt him. The Romanian took a Geremi pass on his chest after 71 minutes, twisted away from Boris Zivkovic and angled a through pass that Lampard thumped home.

There was even meatier contact 10 minutes from the end as Geremi thrashed in a dipping volley after Dejan Stefanovic's header had dropped to him some 25 yards from the target.