SOCCER/Chelsea - 4 Newcastle - 0: The substitutions were Jose Mourinho's accidental masterstroke. With 62 minutes gone and the match goalless, the manager brought on Mateja Kezman and Wayne Bridge while switching to a 4-2-4 formation, but the pause in the action was more devastating than the tactics. It was long enough for Newcastle United's sagging concentration to collapse completely. Within moments Chelsea had scored.

Didier Drogba was alone to head Claude Makelele's chip into the middle and Frank Lampard waited in sufficient space there to control the ball on his chest before volleying past Shay Given. "You can't give that time," said Graeme Souness sorrowfully. He is yet to ask his chairman what funds will be available for reinforcements next month.

The Tyneside club has spent heavily in recent years without earning entry to the elite. With their midfield flourishing they had a good first half here but the three genuine bidders for the title rarely meet with a sustained challenge on their own turf.

Newcastle's attention span does not extend beyond half-time and 27 of the 31 goals conceded in the Premiership have come after the interval. Souness is trying to rectify the problem and in the build-up to this defeat there had been awestruck accounts of the three training sessions a day to which Titus Bramble has been subjected.

A centre-half's mental stamina is not enhanced as easily as his fitness. After 69 minutes Drogba, who had come on for Eidur Gudjohnsen, fastened on to Frank Lampard's pass and shrugged Bramble aside before firing low into the corner of the net.

"Titus has been pushed off the ball," said Souness. "Titus might be the strongest man in English football; that can't happen." But it did. Muscle is not the real issue and Drogba's force arose from his decisiveness against a hesitant marker.

Chelsea are not easily diverted from their purpose and the assistant manager Steve Clarke believes the current footballers are superior to Gianluca Vialli's team of the late 1990s. "This squad is a little bit hungrier - a lot of young players who maybe haven't got the trophies and medals to go with the riches," he said. "I think that's a big thing."

The side were impressive, after a fashion, even in the first half. The mobile and vigilant Ricardo Carvalho was outstanding in a defence that stopped a then keen Newcastle from doing much damage. Petr Cech took care of any threats that were not snuffed out by the back four, reaching for a Laurent Robert free-kick and later blocking a Craig Bellamy shot with his foot.

Newcastle needed some sort of lead merely to survive. Chelsea were bound to start to torment a team in which Souness was again forced to field the 18-year-old centre-half Steven Taylor at right-back. Lampard eventually became sharper and, as Newcastle wearied, Damien Duff and Arjen Robben were free to roam at pace.

In the 89th minute the Dutchman sped through the middle, shaking off Lee Bowyer and cutting inside to shoot home. Towards the close of stoppage time there was the novelty of Kezman's first Premiership goal. Duff was brought down by Given and the former PSV Eindhoven striker, handed the job on Mourinho's orders, impishly wafted the penalty high into the net.

Kezman, who had earlier cracked a volley off a post, was then the focal point of a mass celebration. Clarke takes that as a sign of the fellowship in the team but the players will also realise how useful to them the hitherto prolific Serb might be if he has now got over his complex about the barren spell in England.

Kezman certainly sounds like an authentic poacher, with his babbling mix of statistics and superstition. "From the moment I arrived at Stamford Bridge this morning I felt I was going to score," he said. "When you score every year 20 or 30 goals for the past seven or eight years, and then in three months it was just one, it's very hard. I am born to score goals."

He had merely knocked home a penalty kick but no one will discourage his euphoria. Once the midweek Champions League formalities have been dealt with in Porto, every single person at Chelsea will need to be on a high at Arsenal on Sunday.