Essien off to the United States
Mike Essien is on pre-season tour Ghana midfielder Michael Essien left for the United States with his Chelsea team-mates to begin their pre-season programme ahead of next season, which begins next month.
The Black Stars midfielder was among the 26 players new manager Carlo Ancelotti led out of London as the Italian tactician commences process towards building his own team following his appointment as Guus Hiddink successor.
Essien resumed training with the Blues on Monday at Cobham alongside his fellow African club mates after they were given extended break due to their involvement in FIFA World Cup qualifiers in last month.
Ancelotti says the former Lyonace as well as Didier Drogba, Michael Essien and Salomon Kalou will need to work hard on their physical condition.
"The African players will have more difficulty to find a good physical condition," Carlo Ancelotti said.
"They have to work quickly to find a good condition but we will not have any problem", added the former AC Milan boss.
Essien and his Chelsea team mates will play their first pre-season game against Seattle Sounders on Saturday at the Qwest Field Stadium before coming up against former manager Jose Mourinho and his Inter Milan squad on Tuesday at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California.
The Blues will face Ancelotti's former club, AC Milan at the M&T Bank Stadium on Friday next week, before rounding off their pre-season games in the US with a clash with Club America at Cowboy Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Chelsea's pre-season squad
Petr Cech, Hilario, Ross Turnbull, Branislav Ivanovic, Ashley Cole, Michael Essien, Ricardo Carvalho, Andriy Shevchenko, Frank Lampard, Franco Di Santo, Didier Drogba, John Mikel Obi, Michael Ballack, Claudio Pizarro, Florent Malouda, Scott Sinclair, Jose Bosingwa, Deco Salomon, Kalou Daniel, Sturridge John, Terry Alex, Juliano Belletti, Nicolas Anelka, Michael Mancienne, Sam Hutchinson and new signing Yuri Zhirkov will be joining the tour in progress.