We can win title, insists Lampard after his double sinks Blackpool - Independent

Chelsea this morning resemble a politician who has conceded electoral defeat while wondering if they should have asked for a recount. Few teams have won more comfortably at Blackpool and the gap between themselves and Manchester United is now nine points with a game in hand. Were it closer you might just back Chelsea's remorselessness to win through.

chelsea this morning resemble a politician who has conceded defeat while wondering if they should have asked for a recount. Few teams have won more comfortably at Blackpool and the gap between themselves and Manchester United is now nine points with a game in hand. Were it closer you might just back Chelsea's remorselessness to win through.

On the final whistle, John Terry threw his shirt into the travelling fans amid cries of "We'll never play you again". Chelsea's strength has always been scoring goals from midfield and the combination of Salomon Kalou and Frank Lampard proved far better than the more obvious one between Didier Drogba and Fernando Torres, and for Blackpool it was too much.

"You have to believe," said Lampard when asked whether this result meant Chelsea could still retain their title. "It is a long shot; we have given ourselves a lot to do. The teams at the top have a gap but, if we win all our games, we can do it."

When Chelsea arrived at Bloomfield Road, where they had last been beaten in 1965, a vast sun the colour of a tangerine shirt had sunk into the Irish Sea, which seemed an omen of sorts. Lampard thought the fixture "a banana skin; a Monday night, late in the season," and well though Blackpool fought, Kalou's intervention once Drogba had limped theatrically off, was decisive.

As Ian Holloway mulled over the match, Ian Evatt's challenge on Kalou that led to the critical penalty that gave Chelsea their second goal was being replayed in Bloomfield Road's modest press room. "He could not wait to go down and the referee could not wait to give it," said the Blackpool manager. "But we recognise what we are up against. When David is swinging his sling at Goliath, you need to hit him square in the forehead and we missed."

As he had done at Stamford Bridge against Manchester United last Tuesday night, Lampard finished the penalty emphatically with his father looking down from the stands. Then Kalou promptly slipped through Lampard, who anticipated the move instinctively and almost passed the ball surgically into the corner of Richard Kingson's net.

The result will be given in evidence that Blackpool are in irredeemable freefall and will probably join Wigan in a Lancastrian exodus from the Premier League. Yet the fact that they kept attacking even when the match appeared hopelessly lost is a reason why they might survive. In the last 10 minutes, they carved out four opportunities and took one when Jason Puncheon's run was finished off with a drilled shot past Petr Cech.

His goal did ensure that Blackpool's achievement of scoring in every home fixture since August 2009 was maintained, although so was their failure to keep a clean sheet in their previous 17 matches at Bloomfield Road.

Perhaps it was significant that all the goals came from Chelsea's old firm, the men who will most resolutely stick to the script that the title should not be surrendered just yet. For the first, Lampard delivered the corner and Terry ran through a dual carriageway created by the Blackpool defence to drive his header past Kingson.

This was a contest that delivered a mass of bruises to its participants. Kingson, Michael Essien and David Luiz, all required attention and so too did Jose Bosingwa, although for what nobody was very sure.

Drogba, however, seemed mentally and physically bruised. Being dropped for the seismic victory over Manchester United would have stung. Even though he began this game alongside Torres, he looked thoroughly fed up with events, bemoaning Mike Dean's failure to stop play when Essien was injured and then making it very obvious he wanted to come off.

Just before the interval, as Chelsea counter-attacked, Drogba attempted one of his muscular runs through the centre of defence. The great athlete's body, though, simply failed to respond and no sooner had he been hauled off than Kalou and Lampard put the match to bed. Perhaps the night's real significance was not Chelsea's three points but that this little ground was witnessing the twilight of a champion.

Blackpool (4-5-1): Kingson (Halstead, 66); Eardley, Baptiste, Evatt, Crainey; Puncheon, Southern, Vaughan, Reid (Ormerod 72), Carney (Phillips, 73); Beattie. Substitutes not used Taylor-Fletcher, Grandin, Varney, Kornilenko.

Chelsea (4-4-2): Cech; Bosingwa, Luiz, Terry, Cole; Ramires (McEachran, 74), Essien, Lampard, Zhirkov (Malouda, 72); Drogba (Kalou, 55), Torres. Substitutes not used Turnbull (gk), Ivanovic, Ferreira, Anelka.

Possession Blackpool 42 Chelsea 58.

Attempts on target Blackpool 5 Chelsea 11.

Man of the match Lampard. Match rating 6/10.

Referee M Dean (Wirral). Attendance 15,584.