The Blues had won only one of their five previous away games this season but West Ham are mired in injury problems and again started without a recognized striker. They used the same formation which served them so well at Spurs, employing Kevin Nolan furthest up the field.

However, Chelsea rarely looked troubled and despite West Ham starting the brighter with Stewart Downing causing some problems, the Blues took the lead. Guy Demel’s woeful back-pass was under hit and Oscar nipped in ahead of goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen, who tripped him up and Lampard duly converted the spot-kick.

West Ham’s heads dropped and Chelsea started threatening with Hazard and Oscar wreaking havoc in the home side’s defence. The duo combined perfectly when Hazard flicked the ball beyond the on-rushing James Collins to send Oscar through, and the Brazilian made no mistake in firing into the bottom corner to double the lead.

It was all Chelsea from there on and Sam Allardyce had seen enough to prompt him to make two substitutions five minutes before half-time. He hauled off Joe Cole and Jack Collison and introduced Modibo Maiga up front and Mohamed Diame to shore up the midfield. However, his decisions were meant with strong criticism from the home fans and they started chanting “you don’t know what you’re doing.”

But, Allardyce seemed partly vindicated when West Ham made more of a fist out of the game in the second half. In fact, his substitute Maiga should have scored after Demel went on a mesmerizing run on the flank and squared it, only for the forward to blaze it over.

The Hammers dominated possession but not find that incisive pass to open up the Chelsea defence, who seemed comfortable in conceding possession and counter-attacking.

They were close to scoring early in the second half when Gary Cahill’s header was cleared off the line but Lampard made sure of the points minutes from the end when he drove home to send Chelsea level on points with Liverpool in third and four behind leaders Arsenal.