Lampard's 200th inspires Chelsea

Super Frank ... the Chelsea veteran brings up his goal milestone. Source: Darren Walsh / AAP

Frank Lampard scored his 200th Chelsea goal to help the Blues to a 2-0 victory over his former club, West Ham United, which moves them up to third in the Barclays Premier League.

An impressive Eden Hazard teed up the veteran midfielder's 19th-minute header with a skilful chip into the box before adding one of his own early in the second half.

Lampard, on his 595th Blues appearance, was unmarked when he met Hazard's clipped cross from the right channel with a firm header for his first goal since his strike in the FA Cup fourth-round replay with Brentford in February.

Chelsea would have been in front much earlier had Demba Ba converted instead of slicing wide  in one of the misses of the season when played in by Lampard in the seventh minute.

Manager Rafael Benitez admits Chelsea's win could have been even sweeter if they had scored more goals, but says it has still been a "positive" week.

		P	W	D	L	GD	Pts
1	Man United	29	24	2	3	38	74
2	Man City	29	17	8	4	25	59
3	Chelsea	29	16	7	6	28	55
4	Tottenham	30	16	6	8	14	54
5	Arsenal	29	14	8	7	23	50
6	Everton	29	12	12	5	11	48
7	Liverpool	30	12	9	9	18	45
8	West Brom	30	13	5	12	2	44
9	Swansea	30	10	10	10	2	40
10	Fulham	29	9	9	11	-4	36
11	Stoke	30	7	13	10	-8	34
12	Norwich	30	7	13	10	-18	34
13	Newcastle	30	9	6	15	-11	33
14	West Ham	29	9	6	14	-11	33
15	Sunderland	30	7	10	13	-9	31
16	Southampton	30	7	10	13	-10	31
17	Aston Villa	30	7	9	14	-25	30
18	Wigan	29	7	6	16	-21	27
19	Reading	30	5	8	17	-22	23
20	QPR	30	4	11	15	-22	23

The triumph came after they turned around their UEFA Europa League tie with Steaua Bucharest in midweek to advance to the quarter-finals and Benitez is pleased to see his side on the up.

"It's a pity because it was a great win, a great result for us, a clean sheet, two goals, 200 goals for Lampard, but we could have maybe scored three or four goals and it would have been even better," he said.

"West Ham are a difficult team to play against. Free-kicks and corners are always a problem. If they'd have scored one goal they would have been back in the game so we needed to score the third goal, kill the game, but we didn't do it.

"We're still very positive. The week was very positive for us and today the team was playing great football."

On Lampard reaching his milestone the manager said: "He's a great player. 200 goals for any player is a fantastic achievement. For a midfielder it's even better.

"He could have scored one or two more goals. I'm really pleased for the team, really pleased for him and for everyone here."

David Luiz was substituted for John Terry in the 78th minute with an apparent injury and Benitez says he does not yet know the severity of the damage.

"We don't know. We need to talk with the doctor because we don't know how serious the problem is," he said.

"We made the substitution just in case but we need to talk with the doctor."

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