Chelsea 4 Lampard 28, Cole 54, Kezman 78, 90
Crystal Palace 1 Riihilahti 42

Crystal Palace boss Iain Dowie admitted the scoreline was "harsh" on Palace as the Eagles were unable to complete their record of taking points off all the Premiership big three.

After holding Arsenal and Manchester United to draws this campaign, Palace were confident they could get something from Stamford Bridge.

But after Joe Cole's goal there was no way back for Palace as Mateja Kezman scored a fortunate late double while Palace pushed for an equaliser.

Dowie said: "Defensively over the 90 minutes we did well, we tried to keep on Gonzalo Sorondo for as long as possible even though he had an injury, I thought he and Fitz Hall played very well at the heart of the defence.

"They Chelsea have such a good squad of players that they can take advantage when we have to make changes but we were fully aware of that and knew the task ahead."

Sorondo's withdrawal was capitalised on by Jose Mourinho, as he brought on Robben and then Kezman to attack the Palace defence who struggled without the influential Uruguayan.

But Palace more than matched Mourinho's men in the first half and had more possession in their attacking third than their hosts, before England midfielder Frank Lampard put his side ahead with an unstoppable 25-yard strike.

After Lampard tested Kiraly again with another strike from distance, Aki Riihilahti gave Palace a lifeline in the 42nd minute when he scrambled in a poor Routledge corner which reached the Finn after Lampard made a hash of a simple clearance.

Palace nearly grabbed a shock lead when a Michael Hughes' free-kick was only half cleared by Petr Cech to Fitz Hall who directed the ball back into the danger area towards Andrew Johnson who fired wide with the goal gaping.

Relieved by their let-off, Chelsea started the second half in dominant fashion and Joe Cole gave his side the lead for the second time in the 54th minute, when he ran on to a ball from Gudjohnsen at the edge of the Palace box and shot early through Danny Granville's legs past an unsighted Gabor Kiraly. Sorondo's failure to recover from a first-half injury forced the defender off 10 minutes later and led to an attacking change by Dowie replacing him and Wayne Routledge with Dougie Freedman and Sandor Torghelle.

But any chance of a Palace fightback was wiped out minutes later when Kiraly managed to spill a weak Kezman effort through his legs to put Chelsea 3-1 up.

Kiraly then redeemed himself by pushing a Robben shot wide, before Kezman completed the scoring in injury time when he squeezed the ball past the Hungarian following a goalmouth scramble in the Palace box.

MATCH STATS
Palace star man: Gonzalo Sorondo Despite receiving an early injury the Uruguayan still managed to keep Drogba quiet and along with Fitz Hall kept the Palace defence solid in the first half. Hopefully his injury will not rule him out for too long because Dowie's loan signing from Inter Milan will play a vital part in the Eagles bid to avoid the drop.

Palace: Kiraly 6, Granville 6, Sorondo 8(Freedman 74 6), Hall 8, Boyce 7, Routledge 6 (Torghelle 73 5), Riihilahti 7(Watson 88) 5, Hughes 7, Soares 7, Leigertwood 7, Johnson 7.

Subs Not Used: Speroni, Borrowdale.

Chelsea Palace 12 On target 1 7 Off target 3 13 Fouls 16 1 Yellow cards 0 0 Red cards 0