“It’s a really happy feeling for me. I’m so excited to be here, play my first game and contribute. They’ve welcomed me really well. I can’t wait for more.

“It’s always healthy to have competition. It’s football and this is an incredible club, but you’ve got to thrive off the competition.”

“Very good result,” the Chelsea boss says. “The good thing about Liam is that he knows the way we want to play. We also gave a chance to Dario Essugo, so it was good for both of them.

“We need to recover, we have a game in three days. We are going to prepare in the best way and try to win.”

Comfortable enough for Chelsea in Atlanta, not too much to stress or strain the players. Pedro Neto was bright enough, and new recruits Liam Delap and Dario Essugo both went well off the bench.

Denis Bouanga really hasn’t been far away from breaking Chelsea open tonight. Malo Gusto just gets his challenge right, making enough contact to unsteady Bouanga as he enters the box but not enough to draw the referee’s whistle.

The final act of the game is nearly something spectacular: Pedro Neto flicks the top of the crossbar with a searing drive. That’s that, though.

Eddie Segura ventures forward out of defence to take an Olivier Giroud pass and fire away a shot, but a deflection takes the sting out of it and makes it easy for Robert Sanchez to gather on his knees.

Into three added minutes.

Yaw Yeboah and Marlon Santos are thrown on as LAFC search for a route back into the game late on.

A couple more changes for Chelsea, including the introduction of another new boy. The tough-tackling Dario Essugo comes on in midfield with Christopher Nkunku also utilised off the bench further forward.

Nearly one back! A driving run from Denis Bouanga, who hits the deck as he strikes under contact from Malo Gusto. There is no foul and Robert Sanchez is down swiftly enough to keep out the effort.

Gusto had initially totally misjudged the flight of a diagonal to let Bouanga in.

A surge into the box and Enzo Fernandez doubles Chelsea’s lead!

Good goal, this. Liam Delap peels away to the right to collect a Cole Palmer pass, creating room up the centre. Fernandez fills it, injecting intelligently to latch on to Delap’s curling cross and ram it home.