Well, that was a frantic end to a game which felt like a friendly but had its moments all the same. Sydney will be disappointed they didn’t get a goal; they certainly had enough chances. But they’ll be pleased to have stayed with the Premier League champions even if Chelsea didn’t approach the game with their usual squinty-eyed steel.

You can question the worth, in footballing terms, of post-season tours like this, but then it’s not about the football really is it? Almost 84,000 turned up to watch so it will have been worth it for Chelsea. Still, they must be wondering —as will Sydney— when their season will finally end.

Oh, the managers have swapped puffer jackets, presumably at the request of Arnold. A friendly end to a friendly match.

Thanks for your patronage, your emails, and thanks to Richard who presumably is staring at the bottom of a bottle and questioning some of his choices in life.

90 min + 2: Just a minute remaining and Sydney go to Gersbach again but he can’t control the ball and Chelsea clear. Moments later, however, Sydney come this close. Antonis chips cleverly for Ryall who just manages to cross from the byline, at pace. His cross drops over the heads of two Sydney players with the goal wide open, Cech having been drawn to the near post.

91 min: Another chance for Sydney! This time Terry uses his guts to block a rasping shot by Antonis. All those sit ups were suddenly worth it.

90 min: Gersbach flies down the leftwing but a sliding tackle prevents a cross.

89 min: Hazard goes off, Charlie Colkett replaces him. Great effort by Hazard who did much more than go through the motions.

88 min: What a missed chance by Sydney! A cross from the right drops on the head of Hoole, criminally unmarked on Chelsea’s six-yard box. He heads into the ground and Cech does very well to get a left glove to it. The rebound bounces into Ryall’s arm as he tussles with Christensen and though he stabs the ball home the referee disallows the goal.

87 min: Speaking of cool names, Sammy Lopez Metta Bexar writes in to suggest this game needs a little spark: “Hola, early Texas morning here... This game might be more fun if a dingo or wallaby or something more Australian-lethal were let loose on the pitch. Just sayin’.”

Should have put redbacks on the Chelsea toilet seats. But you’d figure they brought their own out with them. Leaving nothing to chance and all that.

85 min: Remy comes off for an early beverage and Isaiah Brown comes on, looking as cool as his name.

83 min: As Chelsea continue to press, and Ivanonic, I think it was, fires across goal from an acute angle, Richard Parkin sees a Beatles moment in this live blog: “Loving that due to ‘technical difficulties’ we get one half from Paul and one half from John (Richard) - is this the Guardian’s answer to the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’?”

81 min: Hazard whips in a corner. Straight to the first defender. It’s the curse of world football, that.

78 min: Chelsea so close to a second! Hazard again, cutting up the middle by making training cones out of the Sydney defence. He makes room for a shot but unselfishly chooses to pass outside him to Andreas Christensen who is charging down the right flank. Christensen tries to beat Janjetovic at his near post but the Sydney keeper is equal to it, pushing it away to safety. Lovely move, great save.

76 min: Chelsea are cruising but, at 1-0 up, are still open to an equaliser if Sydney can beat Cech. Sydney will push hard from here, you’d think. Not as much a friendly for Sydney as for Chelsea for obvious reasons.

73 min: Mikel pirouettes beautifully near the centre circle and he finds Hazard on the gallop. His chip forward is just intercepted by Janjetovic. A here’s a shot of Mourinho looking peeved. Or jet-lagged.

Sydney go down the other end and some generous defending allows Naumoff to get off a left-foot strike from the middle of Chelsea’s D. He hits it well but Cech doesn’t have to move.

70 min: The crowd is up: 83,598. A record football crowd at the stadium since its reconfiguration following the 2000 Olympics. Bigger than the Asian Cup final, which says something. When I work out what I’ll send you a post-it note.

67 min: Gersbach makes a telling goal-line clearance from Remy who, after being found by Azpilicueta, gave it some stick.

66 min: Hazard is Chelsea’s midfield focal point and he’s laying off passes like Ferenc Puskas once the weight had really set in. Hazard, of course, is trim and quick, but I mentioned this merely to illustrate how much time he has on the ball.

64 min: The Aussie commentators are whipping this one up a tad. It’ll be butter soon. E.g.: Smeltz chases a through ball that Ivanovic cleans up like spilled water on a vinyl table. It’s given as an example of his class at “last-ditch defending”.

62 min: Cech is called into action, diving to his left to parry a well-hit shot from Terry Antonis who had carved out a bit of space for himself on the right edge of the Chelsea area. From where I sit, on the right cushion of a brown couch in Melbourne, he might have been better going across Cech.

60 min: Hazard has a shot blocked after he received a judicious back-heel from Loftus-Cheek. He’s been good, Hazard. Lively, like. Chelsea should hang on to him.

59 min: A little of the verve has gone out of this game, at least from Chelsea. Predictably, as I write, Remy fires off a long range effort that has Janjetovic scrambling such is his surprise but it wobbles wide of his left post.

57 min: Sydney stitch together a nice move on the edge of the Chelsea box. A one-two between Andrew Hoole and Brosque ends up with Brosque snapping off a quick one (no, the other kind) but he slices it wide.

55 min: Hazard is felled by Seb Ryall, who stuck a lazy leg in. He gets the first yellow of the night.

52 min: Gersbach holds off a Chelsea attack by stubbornly insinuating himself between the ball and Chelsea’s winger (whose name I missed). He cleared for a corner which sailed across the box and ended over the byline.

For those worried, Costa has a niggle in his Achilles, but nothing to worry about what with the Premier League season virtually upon us. Wait...

51 min: I expect we’ll see a lot of subs used as we eat into the second half so here are the team sheets (yes, I’m dropping this in as much for my benefit as yours):

49 min: Sydney shift the ball down their left flank but Chelsea deal with it easily enough and Loftus-Cheek comes away with it. Loftus-Cheek. Sounds like the kind of malaise a kid gets. “Sorry, Tarquin will not be at school today, he has an acute case of Loftus-Cheek.”

48 min: Hazard slips by Sydney’s midfield like he’s on one of those moving conveyor belts you see at airports. But his through ball has too much on it.

Hi folks, Paul Connolly here, jumping into the warm spot left behind by Richard who is having —or at least has had— technical difficulties, the kind that would have left me in a quivering heap and crying out for my mummy. You don’t want to know. Anyway, he’s done heroically well, and I will see you through to fulltime.

I must admit I’ve come to this game late. Indeed I was putting my kids to bed (i.e. halfway through concreting them in their beds) when the call came through. So I’ve just caught the highlights and heard the commentators say “glitz” a few times. Perhaps even in a fawning manner. And let’s be honest, a fair bit of fawning goes on with these visits of high profile footballers from overseas.

What have you I missed? In the main a nice goal to Loic Remy and a fluffed chip by Christoper Naumoff that could have levelled things. Here’s the Remy goal:

44 mins: Not long left until the end of the half. Apart from that 90-second burst of action there’s not been a lot else happening. Antonis with a half-chance from distance that just deflected off Terry before it reached Cech. The Costa “injury” is probably the most noteworthy moment, hopefully it was just a precaution.

43 mins: Ouchie. Grant blasts one straight into Mikel’s midriff. That looked painful. Costa’s gone straight down the tunnel after taking his boot off.

41 mins: Sure enough, on comes Loftus-Cheek for the Spaniard. Not worth the risk. Looks like a straight swap too.

39 mins: Bit of a breather after that 100m dash. Strange pace to the game. Costa has signalled to Jose that he’s struggling with a calf issue. Hopefully nothing too serious...

36 mins: Well that escalated quickly... just what the game needed after a fairly sluggish start. A Sydney chance was sandwiched in there somewhere but it should be 2-0 really.

34 mins: Oooo! More chances for Chelsea. Costa with an outswinger that just skims wide of the post. We’ve got a live one here. Finally.

32 mins: Straight up the other end and Chelsea have to clear one off the line! Finally the game has sprung to life and Chelsea hold on by the skin of their teeth.

Not a bad call. Chelsea look very happy just to bide their time and wait for the moment to strike. Sydney still having to battle hard to stay in the contest though.

26 mins: Sydney with another chance, great work down the flank by Gersbach but the final shot is poor and it flies over the bar.

23 mins: Gersbach with a deep cross... too deep in fact. It goes all the way over to the other flank to Grant, who manages to get one away but it was never going to trouble Cech. Still, a positive sign for the hosts.

21 mins: Chelsea look very comfortable at the minute... although I’m sure that won’t come as a huge shock. The only surprise is it’s still 0-0. Chelsea have had a couple of good chances but Sydney have held them off well so far without creating anything of note for themselves.

17 mins: Faty and Grant having a few words with each other. Not sure what that’s about. Any more of that and I suspect Graham Arnold will bash their heads together Stooges-style.

14 mins: Oooo. Remy in a great position at the back post but he knocks it wide of the target. He should’ve done better from there. Shot across the bows for the Sky Blues. Still, they were always going to have to ride their luck a little to make a game of it.

12 mins: Chelsea not exactly going full throttle but with Mikel, Hazard et al they’re still showing Sydney a clean pair of heels. Still, Sydney don’t look totally outclassed. I believe the word is “dogged”.

10 mins: Sydney just starting to get back into it slightly. Naumoff hits a left-footer but Cech has no trouble dealing with it. It’s not all one-way traffic at least.

9 mins: Sydney being very stand-offish on Costa. Is that because it’s a friendly, or because they know he’s pretty good at picking up free-kicks?

6 mins: Ooooo! Costa hits one low and the keeper just about scoops it away. He didn’t look like he knew much about it though.

5 mins: Early corner to Sydney. It flies to the near post but it’s headed away comfortably by Chelsea. Tentative start but Sydney don’t look overawed.

3 mins: Costa making the first early foray but he’s squeezed out as Sydney track back in numbers. I suspect they’ll be a lot of that tonight.

It was certainly a step up in pace on Saturday, and not just for Sydney either – my typing could barely keep up. Just think of me as the Robert Pires of bloggers; occasionally entertaining but goes missing too often.

For those of you who didn’t catch the game on Saturday, Erik Lamela tried one of these again.

OK it didn’t come off this time, but let’s hope Chelsea take it as a thrown gauntlet.

If you can’t be bothered reading my preamble, this is it in a less rambling nutshell.

Richard will be along shortly to guide you through events in Sydney. Until he gets here, remind yourself of how the home-town club did in their last outing against Premier League opposition.

Sydney FC discovered why England’s just wild about Harry when Tottenham golden boy Harry Kane put the Sky Blues to the sword before a bumper crowd of more than 71,500 at Sydney’s ANZ Stadium on Saturday night. Kane just can’t stop scoring, and the 21-year-old striker delivered the goods again with the only goal as Spurs downed Sydney FC 1-0.

Read the full match report here.