Chelsea´s Lampard ready for Man Utd showdown

Frank Lampard believes Chelsea are ready to wrestle the Premier League title away from Manchester United after warming up for next weekend’s showdown at Old Trafford with a 7-1 rout of Aston Villa.

Lampard scored four times in Saturday’s impressive victory at Stamford Bridge and Chelsea look back to their best after a series of lacklustre displays.

Carlo Ancelotti’s side crashed out of the Champions League against Inter Milan and dropped league points against Manchester City and Blackburn.

But despite those slips they can go two points clear of United at the top with a win at Old Trafford on Saturday.

Chelsea defeated Sir Alex Ferguson’s team 1-0 in November and Lampard feels that triumph, coupled with their victories this season over Arsenal and Liverpool, proves they have the quality to win the title.

“We know the quality of the players we have, we’ve shown that over the course of the season,” Lampard said.

“We’ve beaten Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal playing different formations.

“Now we have to focus on what we have to do – we look forward to going to Old Trafford.”

The England midfielder, who has now hit at least 20 goals in six successive seasons and has moved up to third in Chelsea’s all-time scorers list, apologised for Chelsea’s recent woes but insisted the demolition of Villa was one of the finest performances he has been involved in.

“We’ve had a few poor performances recently and we have to apologise to the fans for that,” Lampard said.

“But hopefully this makes up for those and now we can concentrate on what we know we have to do because if we win all our remaining matches, we will be champions.

“We have to forget the little rut we have had and concentrate on the target.

“It’s up there with our best performances. There was a 6-0 against Manchester City and then a 2-0 against Villa last season, when it could have been six or seven.

“This is right up there because we were playing a very good team. They’ve got good players throughout their team so when you do that to them, well, you can’t say enough about the performance.”