Three and easy

Lampard: Notched again

It could be a great year for the Premier League in this season’s Champions League as Chelsea became the third English side to progress into the quarter finals after an emphatic 3-0 defeat of Olympiakos at Stamford Bridge.

Arsenal and Manchester United have already made it into the hat and Liverpool have a great chance to complete the ‘awesome foursome’ as they defend a 2-0 lead against Inter Milan at the San Siro next week.

Chelsea flew out of the blocks taking the lead through an invigorated Michael Ballack after only six minutes, Frank Lampard doubled the score after 25 minutes and three minutes after the break, Salomon Kalou slotted home from a Lampard corner.

Coach Avram Grant made further progress in banishing the memory of the Chelsea’s Carling Cup final defeat to Spurs and hailed his team’s ‘maturity’

‘The team was patient, held the ball most of the time and were quick when needed. It was clever football,’ said Grant.

‘I'm happy of course. We won, We are in the next round and played good football. The team was very mature.’

‘We knew Olympiakos always score away so we knew they were very dangerous.’

The omens are looking good for the Premier League big-guns and, as an added bonus, much-fancied nine-time winners Real Madrid joined AC Milan on the scrapheap after losing 2-1 (4-2 aggregate) at home to Roma.

As long as the Premier League sides miss each other in the open draw, there’s a strong possibility of an all-English final in Moscow.

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