It was an excellent night for Chelsea’s fans, but Frank Lampard might have enjoyed his side’s 3-0 victory a little bit less

1 Lampard could be warming a few benches this season

As a message of where he figures in the André Villas-Boas project the placing of Chelsea’s once great ape among the replacements for a match that could define the club’s season and the coach’s tenure could not be clearer. At Newcastle United on Saturday Lampard began, then lasted just beyond the hour before being taken off, with the cameras zooming in on the 33-year-old’s thunderous face and a few hardly disguised shakes of the head.

Tonight Lampard was not trusted in the starting XI, Raul Meireles getting the nod. His Portuguese manager has clearly judged that the zip that made him Super Frank is no more. Lampard’s game sense and experience still remain, as they always do in any top professional. What he has to prove is that Villas-Boas cannot afford to leave him out when it really matters: on this evidence it will be difficult. Should he fail, his place in the England squad may also be in doubt.

2 Stamford Bridge can rock if it needs to

Before this game Villas-Boas and John Terry exhorted the Stamford Bridge crowd to create an atmosphere as electric as Anfield famously is on a night of European football. Within three minutes the voltage jumped when