FRANK LAMPARD sank 10-man Manchester City then vowed: I'm staying put. The Blues legend, frozen out of the starting line-up by Andre Villas-Boas, came off the bench to hit the winner from the penalty spot eight minutes from time.
He inflicted City's first Premier League defeat of the season to lift Blues to third. Lamps said: "I know I've got a lot to give. I've 18 months left on my contract and I'll be here for that long and keep trying my hardest.
"It's not easy when you're not playing. I want to play. I was on a good run of form, I was scoring regularly and playing pretty well and now I'm in and out but what can you do? "I'm 33 — I understand but I want to play regularly for this club."
Lamps had missed his previous two penalties but made no mistake from 12 yards after Joleon Lescott handled Daniel Sturridge's shot seven minutes from time. Mario Balotelli had given the visitors a second-minute lead, only for Raul Meireles to level before City left-back Gael Clichy saw red for two bookings.
It means Chelsea are now seven points behind leaders City. Lampard added: "We needed a win to stay in the race because 10 points was a huge gap and luckily we've closed that.
"Man City are the top team in the league this year and quite rightly so with the kind of form they've shown this season — we saw glimpses of it tonight. "I missed a penalty a few weeks ago and the next one is always a bit tough — especially as I take so many against Joe Hart while training with England. He's the last person I wanted to take a penalty against. "The way they started was sharp but once we got into the game I had a feeling it was going to be our night."
City boss Roberto Mancini pointed the finger at ref Mark Clattenburg for not awarding his team a penalty when Jose Bosingwa appeared to trip David Silva in the box in the first half. The Italian said: "Sure the sending-off changed the game but so did the penalty in the first half.
"The referee was only two or three metres behind Silva and did not the give the penalty.
"I do not know why he didn't give it.
"It was raining and maybe the rain was in his eyes.
"When we went down to 10 players it was difficult."
Villas-Boas said: "We don't take any extra flavour from being the first team to beat Man City.
"We just wanted to get our own title challenge back on track and I think it pretty much is now."
Source: thesun.co.uk
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