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Frank Lampard has insisted he is not panicking over Chelsea's poor form despite boss Carlo Ancelotti saying he was unhappy with the performance here last night.
Chelsea limped to an unconvincing 1-0 win away at Cyrpiot minnows Apoel Nicosia in the Champions League, just four days after their shocking 3-1 defeat at Wigan.
Ancelotti's side are now well on course to qualifying for the knock-out stages after two straight wins but the manager said: “We made a lot of mistakes. I'm not satisfied. I wanted Chelsea to play better and to take more control, to play with courage. We have to play better.”
Chelsea's next test comes against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Sunday and Lampard claimed the criticism the Blues have received is wrong and is confident they can beat Rafael Benitez's men.
Lampard said: “I don't know why people say we're not clicking. We have only lost one game this season. We lost against Wigan and we didn't play well there at all. We have now come to Apoel and won so that's what counts. If you look over the season, we have clicked together as a team. We try to win every game and when we don't we just try harder in the next match.
“It's a big game on Sunday against Liverpool but they lost the other night and will be trying to improve as well.
“The added bonus is that we have won our match in Europe and with a clean sheet as well. We hope to qualify as soon as we can.”
The England international reserved special praise for striker Nicolas Anelka, who scored Chelsea's only goal with a sublime shot into the top corner in the first half.
Anelka has netted both winning goals for Chelsea in the Champions League this season and ensured Didier Drogba's three-game ban has not hurt their hopes in the competition. Lampard added: “Nicolas is a top player and performed for big periods when Didier was out last season.
“He can be a lone striker or excel when someone is alongside him. His finish was top quality.”
Captain John Terry was delighted with his team-mates' response to his strong words after the Wigan defeat but conceded Liverpool will pose a stronger test than Apoel. He said: “The confidence wasn't knocked at Wigan — you can't afford not to believe in yourselves or your team-mates.
“It was important that we realised what went wrong at Wigan and that we responded well. You don't get much time to think about it with the games coming thick and fast and we did a good job here.
“But we have to be better against Liverpool. They will be up for it and they are a big club so we will have to respond again when we play them.”
Reader views (5)
Terry - care to comment on Sunday's thrashing?
- Neil, Bedford, England, 05/10/2009 15:23
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Joint top of the league
Top of the champions league group
God help the rest when we start firing then
Onwards and upwards
- Paul, Ealing, 01/10/2009 16:49
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roll on Sunday when Liverpool thrash Chelsea 5-0
- Terry Chambers, London, 01/10/2009 13:09
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Why was our defeat at Wigan "shocking"? Wigan are a good side, we didn't play well, and lost our goalkeeper to a dubious red card. The penalty may have been correct, but Cole was behind Cech therefore he was the last man, not Cech. had we kept Cech on the pitch, we could quite easily gone on to equalise or even win.
Liverpool, have lost more games, they had a lucky win over Debrecen, and got stuffed at Fiorentina, but they "Are on fire"
- Kerry, Purley, 01/10/2009 12:10
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Chelsea have looked brittle all season. Last gasp winners against Hull & Stoke when draws looked more likely, Sunderland, Stoke and Wigan scoring easy first goals with the liklihood of better teams probably holding on better, Spurs squandering three good early chances to take a deserved lead in the first 20 mins at the Bridge and unconvincing one-nil wins against Porto, QPR & now APOEL confirm this opinion. It is only the media's "great-one-minute, rubbish-the-next" headlines that distort the real truth. Most Chelsea fans can see that there is serious work still to be done and while the Team are not quite relegation material, there needs to be much better performances from the likes of Lampard, Cech, Carvalho and Anelka and for Ancelotti to finally recognise that Malouda and Kalou are just not up to the standard to play at "top four" level, to prevent embarrassment at the hands of the bigger "names" in the weeks ahead.
- Paul, Feltham, 01/10/2009 12:07
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