Frank Lampard celebrated his last minute winner against Stoke by running to the technical area to embrace under-fire coach Luiz Felipe Scolari and was soon joined by the whole team for an celebratory group hug. "We are all behind him," declared Lampard. "It is difficult when people keep try to say things to split things up.

"The manager first of all is a very good man and he has been a very successful manager for a long time.

"Hopefully that success is going to come here. The last month has been difficult. We're in a moment where we make one mistake in a game and we are punished every time.

"We have had countless chances, but keepers are making amazing saves. It's one of those moments. We can only get through them together, we are all in it together and I think it showed.

"At Man United we knew we didn't play anywhere near as well as we should have done. We underperformed and everyone went to town on us. But you have to be big enough to handle things like that at Chelsea and as a group we showed a lot of spirit and with the celebrations at the end.

"We deserved to win the game (Stoke). It was another day where we dominated but couldn't score and they scored from one chance.

"You got the bad feeling that we were going to drop points again, but it was a bit different. The character and team spirit we showed shone through in the end and we got what we deserved."