Chelsea 3 Valencia 0

Didier Drogba hit two goals and Ramires the other as Chelsea blew away Valencia 3-0 tonight in the Champions League. The Ivory Coast striker, 33, rolled back the years to produce a vintage performance to send his team into the knockout stage of the Champions' League. It was a game that started with much speculation over the future of manager Andre Villas-Boas. His under fire side could, had results gone against him seen the Blues crash out of the Champions's League at the group stage for the first time ever. But there was little sign that of that scenario as the home side battered Valencia in the opening exchanges. Raul Meireles, after just two minutes had a trademark right-foot from the edge of the visitors' penalty area saved by Diego Alves. But man-of-the-match Drogba soon settled the nerves of the 41,109 crowd a minute later with a goal that had class written all of it. Juan Mata slide the ball to the Ivory Coast striker who arrowed home the perfect left-foot drive past the desperate dive of Alves. Villas-Boas set up his side to defend deep and break quickly. This afforded Valencia the lions' share of possession which they used to good effect two minutes later. The home side's right upright was rattled when Jordi Alba's smart shot beat Petr Cech but ricocheted off his post. Five minutes later and David Albelda tried his luck, this time from 30 yards out - the right -footer seemed destined for the top right hand corner of Cech's net, but the goalkeeper produced a brilliant save to tip the ball away to safety. But counter-attacking Chelsea soon found the net again on 22 minutes when Drogba, after a powerful long, run fed the ball to Ramires. The Brazil midfielder raced into the box, somehow got behind the centre back, and flicked the the ball home past Alves from close range. Valencia were still intent on pushing forward for the goal to get themselves back into the tie, and on 24 minutes, Sofiane Feghouli tried a speculative shot from 20 yards. Cech, in imperious form was never going to be beaten from this range and easily snuffed out the effort. Daniel Sturridge, the shining light of Villas-Boas' s short reign almost hit number three on 27 minutes after he raced onto a fine Drogba through ball, and forced Alves into producing a low save with his leg. The second half was a repeat of the first, with Valencia again dominating possession. Cech was forced into another fine save on 63 minutes, again from Feghouli before Chelsea scored their third which finally saw off the spirited Spanish side. Racing onto a fine ball from Mata, Drogba cruised past the Valencian rearguard and slotted home a fine, low right foot shot past the hapless Alves from just inside the penalty area. Chelsea never looked in trouble after that as both sides accepted their different fates. The Blues march on in Europe's premier competition while Valencia drop into the Europa Cup.