Chelsea easily consolidated a their place in the top four with a comfortable 3-1 win over Blackpool at Bloomfield Road. Weekend results had impacts on both teams for different reasons. Manchester United's loss gave hope to Chelsea who took full advantage whilst Blackpool missed a chance to move away from the congested lower reaches.
The Seasiders have yet to keep a clean sheet a home this campaign and Chelsea had little difficulty in breaching their rearguard leaving Blackpool with nine league defeats in 12 games in 2011.
Perhaps the only disappointment for visiting boss Carlo Ancelotti was the failure of £50m striker Fernando Torres to open his account for the Blues.
In fact it was defender John Terry who opened the scoring, taking advantage of some poor marking to head home a Frank Lampard corner on 20 minutes.
Up to that point there had been little action but suddenly Chelsea had the confidence and Blackpool were struggled to keep the score down until the break.
But then two goals four minutes just after the hour mark made the points safe for the Blues.
Salomon Kalou is brought down in the penalty area by Ian Evatt and the provider of the first goal Lampard easily scores from the spot kick.
This is followed quickly by Kalou playing a ball through for Lampard to race clear and stroke the ball home.
Chelsea had little difficulty in controlling the rest of the proceedings but a momentary lapse of concentration allowed Jason Puncheon to score a late consolation and keep up Blackpool's record of scoring in all their home matches this season.
Chelsea are now nine points behind leaders Manchester United but at least made inroads into securing a Champions League finish.
Referee: Mike Dean
Venue: Bloomfield Road Attendance: 15,584
Blackpool scorers: Puncheon 86 Chelsea scorers: Terry 20, Lampard 62 (pen) 66
BLACKPOOL 28 Kingson (Halstead 66) 03 Crainey 05 Eardley 06 Evatt 15 Baptiste 04 Southern 11 Vaughan 29 Carney (Phillips 73) 42 Puncheon 43 Reid (Ormerod 72) 44 Beattie
Substitutes 13 Halstead, 14 Grandin, 23 Phillips, 10 Ormerod, 12 Taylor-Fletcher, 16 Varney, 41 Kornilenko
CHELSEA 01 Cech 03 A Cole 04 David Luiz 17 Bosingwa 26 Terry 05 Essien 07 Ramires (McEachran 74) 08 Lampard 18 Zhirkov (Malouda 72) 09 Torres 11 Drogba (Kalou 55)
Substitutes 22 Turnbull, 02 Ivanovic, 19 Ferreira, 15 Malouda, 46 McEachran, 21 Kalou, 39 Anelka
