London, England

Frank Lampard fired two goals to lead Chelsea to a 2-1 victory over Everton for its fourth consecutive Barclays Premier League win Sunday at Goodison Park.

The win put Chelsea in third place at the turn of the year with 38 points, just four markers behind second placer Manchester City.

With his brace, Lampard is now just one goal short of Kerry Dixon, who is the club's second all-time leading scorer with 193.

Everton, for its part, dropped to its third loss despite starting the game with a goal from Steven Pienaar in the second minute.

Right back Phil Jagielka unleashed a cross that Victor Anichebe headed against the far post before Pienaar drilled it past Petr Cech.

Pienaar's goal gave Everton its best Premier League goal scoring return in a calendar year, beating the previous best of 64 in 1996.

With three minutes before the interval, Chelsea tied the count after Lampard booted in a header from a cross by Ramires.

Chelsea lost Cech to injury at the interval, giving Ross Turnbull his first league appearance of the season.

Turnbull had some scary moments but luckily, the crossbar was there to save him several times.

In the 72nd minute, Tim Howard deflected Juan Mata's strike but the ball landed infront of Lampard, who easily booted the game-winning goal from six yards.

"It was a great win for us. The team showed their character and quality and although we made mistakes at the beginning the reaction was really good. At half-time we were talking about solutions and the players did really well," said Chelsea interim manager Rafael Benitez.

"We are not disappointed with how we played because we did really well. We have run the European champions really close, we just didn't quite have enough in the end," Everton manager David Moyes said.

Meanwhile, Luis Suarez scored two goals in the 10th and 16th minute and Daniel Agger added another in the 27th minute to carry Liverpool to a 3-0 win over Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road Stadium.

 

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