Fans enjoy all the fun of the flair as Chelsea hit seven past Sunderland

“I would like to see Chelsea play every game like this,” Ancelotti said. “I don’t know if it’s possible but we want to try. My dream is to see my team play like this every game.”

Chelsea, however, will not play quite like this every week. Their opponents were desperately weakened by injury and suspension to eight first-choice players.

Steve Bruce, the Sunderland manager, said that he was forced to put round pegs in square holes, but his side were much greater misfits than even that. No team with inexperienced centre halves and naive midfield players will stand a chance at Stamford Bridge.

Florent Malouda is many things but never before has he looked such a steamroller of an attacker. His goal came after he won the ball and powered forward almost ignored. For a few seconds he was the best player in the world or simply the least challenged.

The France winger celebrated his goal by holding up five fingers of one hand and two of another. This was not a prediction of the scoreline but his way of showing support for a charity set up for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti that has the seven-fingers salute as its logo.

The match was all huge fun if you were a Chelsea fan, although gripes still filtered through on the radio phone-ins.

How did they concede two goals to such an inept side and why was the scoreline not more emphatic? The answer, to both moans, is that Chelsea were riffing. They were playing games within games. They were a jazz ensemble each taking turns to show off in the spotlight. At one point it seemed that the point of the afternoon was for each member of the side to score.

First, Michael Ballack destroyed Sunderland’s feeble offside trap with a pass to Nicolas Anelka, who rounded Marton Fulop, the exposed goalkeeper, then came Malouda’s turn. Ashley Cole scored probably the sweetest of the goals with a mix of composure and finesse, then the defender provided the cross for Frank Lampard’s volley.

So it was 4-0 at half-time and the only doubt was over whether Chelsea would stop enjoying themselves and instead jog on autopilot through the rest of the match.

Under Mourinho, they may well have done, but Ancelotti had other ideas.

“We want to play for the whole 90 minutes,” he said. “I said at half-time to play the whole 90 minutes and not to sit back. Why would we do that? The people pay the money for their tickets to see the game for 90 minutes, not just for 45.”

So the second half was a pantomime, all fun and frolics and not very serious at all. Joe Cole set up Ballack for the fifth and a dozing Alex was surprised to see a Sunderland player with zest as Boudewijn Zenden made it 5-1.

Nobody minded much; Zenden spent three years at Stamford Bridge and the travelling supporters were too weary to care if anyone was toying with their hopes.

A mistake by Fulop gave Anelka his second goal and Lampard also scored again, heading in the France striker’s cross. The crowd were willing Joe Cole to join in, as if a goal could determine the outcome of his contract talks, but the player’s best chance hit the woodwork.

Nobody, however, expected Kenwyne Jones to score, so poor has his body language been in recent weeks, so it was left to Darren Bent to have the last word and a reminder of the happier times at the start of the season, when he and Sunderland seemed capable of finishing in the top seven.

Jones has been linked with a switch to Liverpool in a swap deal with Ryan Babel, but Bruce said: “Where that comes from I do not know.

“The one thing I am trying to do is to build a squad, to improve. The last thing I want to be doing is trading. That is certainly not true.”

He also needs to work on morale. At times even the mere act of taking a throw-in was too difficult for Bruce’s team. George McCartney’s stumble as he prepared to release the ball was a tiny tragic-comic moment in a whirl of incompetence.

It probably will not get much worse for Sunderland, but there is the tantalising prospect that it could get better for Chelsea.

Chelsea (4-3-2-1): P Cech 5 B Ivanovic 5 J Terry 7 R Carvalho 6 A Cole 8 M Ballack 7 J Belletti 8 F Lampard 7 J Cole 6 F Malouda 8 N Anelka 8 Substitutes: Alex 5 (for Terry, 46min), Y Zhirkov 6 (for A Cole, 46). Not used: Hil?rio, P Ferreira, D Sturridge, N Matic, F Borini. Next: Birmingham City (h).

Sunderland (4-4-2): M Fulop 5 P Bardsley 5 L Cana 4 P Da Silva 4 G McCartney 5 S Malbranque 3 J Henderson 4 D Meyler 3 D Murphy 4 K Jones 5 D Bent 5 Substitutes: B Zenden 6 (for Malbranque, 46min), F Campbell (for Murphy, 72). Not used: T Carson, L Noble, D Healy, R Noble, M Liddle. Next: Everton (a).

Referee: C Foy. Attendance: 41,776.

Quinn stands by ‘perfect man for the job’

Niall Quinn described Steve Bruce yesterday as the “perfect man” to manage Sunderland in the wake of the club’s harrowing 7-2 defeat away to Chelsea (George Caulkin writes).

After a promising start to the season, Sunderland have won only one of their past 12 Barclays Premier League games under Bruce and are four points clear of the relegation zone, but relationships at the Stadium of Light remain solid.

“A day like yesterday hurts, but it’s also a true test,” Quinn said. “I know one thing: Steve is the perfect man for our club and I mean that. I’m not here to pat him on the back, but I’m saying that the day after a horrific result.

“We’ve got a manager who knows what the club is about, who is from the region and knows it’s different, who knows what it takes.

“He hasn’t had the best of luck with injuries and suspensions and he’s not got the thing rolling the way he wants in the last few weeks. Everybody knows that, but I also know it’s possible [to get things moving again] and my role as chairman is to support him.”