Kai Havertz scored a hat-trick as Chelsea beat Brentford 5-1 in a behind-closed-doors friendly on Tuesday.
Taking place at the Blues’ Cobham training ground, a mixture of academy players and senior first-team stars were involved for Graham Potter’s side, in what was their final warm-up game before competitive action resumes.
Mateo Kovacic and Hakim Ziyech, who faced each other in the World Cup third-place play-off between Croatia and Morocco, did not feature, but many of those who were knocked out of the tournament in earlier rounds did get minutes for Chelsea.
Havertz netted twice for Germany in their final group-stage match against Costa Rica, though it wasn’t enough to stop them crashing out, and he has brought that goalscoring form back to west London.
The friendly match against Brentford was played over three periods of 45 minutes each to give as many players as possible a chance to feature.
Chelsea have been less busy in terms of friendlies than some of their rivals, though they played Aston Villa in Abu Dhabi earlier this month.
Potter’s side were beaten 1-0, though the bigger blow was a serious injury to Armando Broja. He is expected to miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on a ruptured cruciate ligament.
Chelsea, who sit eighth in the table, return to action on December 27 when they host Bournemouth in their first Premier League match back, before a trip to face Nottingham Forest on New Year’s Day.
They then play Manchester City twice in the space of a few days, first in the league before travelling to the Etihad for an FA Cup third-round clash.
