Andre Villas-Boas will rotate his squad once more when we complete our summer tour with Saturday's match against Aston Villa in the Barclays Asia Trophy final.
Competition rules were changed prior to Wednesday's semi-finals, allowing coaches to use seven substitutions as opposed to the five previously stipulated, meaning more players will be able to gain valuable pre-season action when we face our Premier League rivals at Hong Kong Stadium tomorrow.
Alex McLeish's side came through a physical encounter 1-0 against Blackburn Rovers while we blew local side Kitchee away with a dominant 4-0 victory.
'We were able to make a good game against Kitchee and hopefully we will have a good game against Aston Villa which is the first Premiership opposition we face, the first and last in pre-season and hopefully we will be up to our standards in preparation,' Villas-Boas said.
'I think our objective is to finish as equal as possible in terms of minutes played to everyone, what we will do [against Aston Villa] we will continue to do against Rangers, distributing minutes so everybody feels in shape, and reinforce the principles we have been applying to training in a game situation.
'It won't be only about selection but spreading out the minutes, hopefully making the seven substitutions we are allowed, which was changed from five. It is important to give minutes to everybody before the start of the Premiership so these two last games we will have we will keep this.'
Prior to Kitchee we had also beaten a Malaysian XI 1-0 in Kuala Lumpur, and a Thai Premier League All Stars side 4-0 in Bangkok, following on from 3-0 and 1-0 wins against Wycombe and Portsmouth in England.
'I think our results have been solid and team performances have been solid,' the manager said. 'We came short on the result against the Malaysian XI but in the end had a couple of good opportunities that changed the perspective of people and how you look at the game.
'Team performances and commitment and compromise have been excellent bearing in mind the conditions and situations we are facing.
'We take a big step with Aston Villa, bearing in mind the quality of the team they have and the new impetus Alex is trying to bring. It will be a different test from before.
'What they propose is a different level of competitiveness and intensity of the game. It will lack the emotions of the English stadiums but we will have a good atmosphere at Hong Kong Stadium because we have been getting that, and again it is a different kind of challenge for us.
'For sure Alex will continue testing his players, trying different structures but for him again it is a step forward in competitiveness.'
Likely to figure at some stage tomorrow is Daniel Sturridge, who scored his first goal of pre-season with a well-taken strike against Kitchee. His coach believes the 21-year-old forward is showing enough potential to remain a part of the squad rather than heading out on loan, as he did last season to Bolton.
'I wouldn't like to focus again on an individual, but Daniel deserved above all to come back to this club and have this pre-season with us,' Villas-Boas explained.
'This is the group where he belongsand he has shown the quality he showed at Bolton when he went there. He has a natural ability and amazing physical qualities and I think he is showing that what he did in Bolton is enough to make a point for us in Chelsea, and that's why we are evaluating all situations.
'He is a great prospect, I have no doubt about it and we will make a decision soon and inform Daniel on his situation, but I think he has shown a lot of his qualities and he has shown enough capacity to be in this environment and this squad.'


You can watch the game against Villa in full on Chelsea TV from 10pm on Saturday night.