Sturridge 5, 68

                                                                                               Eustace (og) 15

                                                                                               Lampard 64

Chelsea opened their defence of the FA Cup with a cruise past Championship strugglers Watford to produce one of the most comfortable victories of the third round weekend.

The win sets up a tie at another Championship side, Preston North End, who had produced the biggest win of the round, 7-0 against Colchester.

Although they didn’t need it, Chelsea had all the luck that was going in the opening quarter, by which time the game was over as a contest.

And young striker Daniel Sturridge took advantage of the opportunity afforded him by the absence of the Blues’ three first-choice strikers - Nicolas Anelka out injured and Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou with Cote D’Ivoire at the African Cup of Nations.

Sturridge gave Chelsea a fifth-minute lead when he stabbed the ball home from close range after John Terry had shot towards goal, his first appearance on the scoresheet for the West Londoners.

The Hornets defence was all over the shop ten minutes later when Joe Cole’s volley took at least two deflections before being diverted over the line by John Eustace.

Hornets’ keeper Scott Loach did well to turn over a powerful Alex header moments later.

But another deflection saw Watford go three-down midway through the half, Yuri Zhirkov’s relatively unthreatening shot striking Florent Malouda and wrong-footing Loach.

Jay de Merit headed a decent chance into the arms of Chelsea keeper Henrique Hilario as the hosts temporarily took their foot off the proverbial pedal.

However, Sturridge was denied by Loach after outpacing the Watford defence. Frank Lampard’s viciously swerving right-foot shot from fully 25 yards beat the exposed custodian all ends up on 64 minutes.

And four minutes later, Sturrdige grabbed his second with a neat piece of close control and left-foot shot from the edge of the six-yard box past Loach’s right hand to complete the scoring.