Lampard injury clouds Chelsea’s perfect start

Carlo Ancelotti admitted Frank Lampard’s hernia injury had taken the shine off Chelsea’s perfect start to their defence of the Premier League title.

Ancelotti’s side recorded a third successive victory on Saturday as a first half goal from Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba’s 77th minute penalty secured a 2-0 success against Stoke at Stamford Bridge.

The champions go into the international break on top of the table after scoring 14 goals and conceding none in their opening three games of the season.

But Ancelotti couldn’t be completely satisfied as he waits nervously to discover if England midfielder Lampard has a successful hernia operation next week.

Lampard will miss England opening Euro 2012 qualifying games against Bulgaria and Switzerland after aggravating the problem on Saturday.

He was substituted with 18 minutes remaining, having earlier failed to convert a 10th-minute penalty.

“He has a problem with a hernia,” Ancelotti said. “He had surgery on it 10 years ago and this week wasn’t very good.

“And in the game he didn’t feel very good again so I think this week the only solution is to have another operation.

“I think he will have this done on Tuesday or Wednesday. He is not able to play for the international team.

“He will be out for one or two weeks. We had the same experience with Didier Drogba, he had the same surgery and in one week he was able to train. It’s not a big problem, it’s very easy surgery. But he started to feel pain and he needs to do this.”

Ancelotti could at least afford to smile at Chelsea’s win despite his side’s failure to scale the heights they reached in successive 6-0 victories over Wigan and West Brom.

“It wasn’t our best performance but it was an important result. There was a lot of difficulty in the game,” Ancelotti said.

“We didn’t have a high tempo in the game. I am happy because we won, we didn’t concede a goal, we kept a clean sheet we maintained our position at the top of the table.”

Meanwhile, Stoke manager Tony Pulis meanwhile launched an angry attack on Arsene Wenger over the Arsenal manager’s comments regarding Stoke defender Ryan Shawcross this week.

Wenger criticised Shawcross’s challenge on Tottenham keeper Heurleho Gomes last weekend, citing it as evidence of “rugby tactics” employed by some teams at set-pieces.

The referee for that game was Chris Foy, the same official who took charge of Arsenal’s win at Blackburn on Saturday, and Pulis believes the comments were an attempt to influence the referee.

“The club is desperately disappointed with the comments Wenger made,” Pulis said.

“Especially the comments he made about Shawcross, they were completely out of order and you don’t expect a person like Wenger to say that. But the club will deal it in the right matter.

“The club has sent a letter to Arsenal and I think there’s been a letter to the FA, the Premier League and also to the managers’ association.

“What he said about Ryan was very, very poor and the club will take that matter forward.”

Pulis also criticised the agents encouraging Asmir Begovic to press for a move away from Stoke after Chelsea bid for the keeper.

Begovic was back in the Stoke squad after refusing to play in a midweek League Cup game.

And Pulis added: “The problem with that is 90 percent of that has been stirred up by faceless people behind the scenes. It goes on and I know that.

“I’m not naive to say it doesn’t. And obviously the fact he said what he did was disappointing. But we’ll do our absolute damnedest to keep Begovic at Stoke City.”