Zenden keeping faith with sloppy De Goey

Although Chelsea coach Claudio Ranieri had favoured Mark Bosnich during the club's pre-season programme, he hinted that an injury to the former Manchester United keeper forced him to give De Goey his chance.

He might think twice before he does so again. Cudicini, who bizarrely injured his knee while walking his dog, is not expected to start training again until next week ruling him out of Saturday's trip to Southampton. And while publicly Ranieri was full of forgiveness yesterday, he is likely now to opt for Bosnich until his No 1 is fit.

Ranieri said: "I told him (De Goey) don't worry because it's normal that when a goalkeeper makes a mistake that it leads to a goal.

"I have three good goalkeepers and yesterday I chose De Goey. Both goals were gifts from the keepers and it's strange but sometimes it happens."

After a busy summer of comings and goings at Chelsea expectation levels are high. Ranieri and managing director Colin Hutchinson have spent a total of £32.2m on Zenden, Emmanuel Petit, William Gallas and Frank Lampard.

Their arrival and the departures of Dennis Wise, Gustavo Poyet, Frank Leboeuf and Jon Harley, which will recoup around £9m, have given Chelsea a fresh look.

Appropriate really with Sky choosing the game to launch their new pay-per-view service and the new west stand completed boosting yesterday's attendance to 40,124.

But in addition to the embarrassment of the power failure, the club couldn't hide the empty seats in the 17 new £1m-a-year millennium suites yesterday.

In the current economic climate chairman Ken Bates will no doubt argue that he needs a bit more time to convince blue-chip clients to buy into his Chelsea Village vision.

It's a similar story with the team. Expectancy might well be high but with a new line-up in midfield Ranieri says it will take at least one month before the team is ready. For all the talk of new starts and new faces, Chelsea should have been too good for a Newcastle side missing Alan Shearer, Kieron Dyer, Nolberto Solano and Carl Cort.

But that wasn't how it turned out and manager Bobby Robson can be pleased to have got a point.

For the time being everyone at Chelsea is in patient mood. But it's worth remembering it only took five matches last season before patience with Gianluca Vialli ran out.

Only time will tell whether Chelsea really have changed all that much.