Chelsea coast ahead in Champions

Chelsea booked their passage to the Champions League knockout phase on Tuesday with a 3-0 win over Valencia at Stamford Bridge while an already-qualified Arsenal went down to defeat at Olympiakos. Valencia enjoyed some impressive periods on the ball, but the Spaniards — who went into the final-day duel level on points with their rivals — never recovered from a third-minute opening goal from Didier Drogba, who played a starring role in a match which saw the Blues win Group E at Bayer Leverkusen’s expense. Daniel Sturridge hit a laser-guided pass to Juan Mata and the former Valencia star fed Drogba, the Ivory Coast striker firing home an unerring left-footed finish. Jordi Alba responded by striking the post for Valencia but Chelsea, knowing they had to go for the three points to ensure further progress, turned the screw again on 22 minutes as a defensive mix-up, coupled with a mazy Drogba run, saw Ramires nip in ahead of Victor Ruiz to score.A neat Drogba finish with 14 minutes remaining wrapped up an ultimately comprehensive victory, with Chelsea emphatically crushing any talk of crisis at the club three days after winning by a similar scoreline at Newcastle.Chelsea, who had made life hard for themselves after squandering leads in their three away matches, won the group by a point with 11 points from their six games after Leverkusen could only draw 1-1 at Belgian makeweights Genk.