FC Porto 0-1 Chelsea

Chelsea won their Champions League qualification group with one match to spare after a hard-earned 1-0 victory over FC Porto.

Nicolas Anelka, Chelsea's best player on the night, scored the only goal of the game at the Estádio do Dragao in the 69th minute.

He broke the deadlock when Russian Yuri Zhirkov, making his first European start for Chelsea, set up Florent Malouda on the left to cross for his French international team-mate to head past Beto in the Porto goal.

Although tonight's result saw Chelsea confirmed as group D winners and Porto as runners-up, both teams had already qualified for the knockout stages, and it showed in the lacklustre early exchanges.

Porto winger Fernando Belluschi tested Petr Cech in the Chelsea goal three times in the first-half, the latter of these attempts crashing into the cross-bar and bouncing out to safety.

Chelsea, whose ex-Porto duo Deco and Ricardo Carvalho got a favourable reception from the home crowd, struggled to impose themselves on the game, despite the return of Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Jon Obi Mikel to the first XI.

But if the home side were getting the better of the Premier League leaders in terms of shots on target, Chelsea always gave the impression they had another gear to move up to.

The breakthrough goal arrived in such a moment when the Blues upped the tempo, with good work from Zhirkov, in for Ashley Cole, and Malouda freeing up some space for the latter to whip in a ball for Anelka to head in from four yards out.

Carlo Ancelotti's side held on to their lead to finish group D with 13 points from five games, while Porto stay on nine points.