MANCHESTER, England — Frank Lampard made Chelsea pay for releasing him this summer after 13 years, scoring a trademark equalizer against his former club for Manchester City in a 1-1 draw between the two biggest contenders for the Premier League title on Sunday.
Chelsea’s four-match winning run to open the season was ended by its all-time record scorer, with Lampard arriving late in the box — as he did so often at Stamford Bridge — to sidefoot home in the 85th minute.
Applauded on and off the pitch by Chelsea’s traveling support, Lampard — keeping his head down — held his arm out in an attempt to hold off the advances of his joyous teammates and didn’t celebrate his first goal for City.
“It’s not how I expected to say goodbye to the Chelsea fans,” said Lampard, who is on loan at City until January from New York City. He described his reunion with Chelsea, for which he scored 211 goals, as “special and weird.”
Chelsea missed a great opportunity to open up an eight-point cushion on City, relinquishing a lead given to the visitors by substitute Andre Schuerrle in the 71st after his far-post tap-in from Eden Hazard’s cross.
City manager Manuel Pellegrini described Chelsea as a “small club” after the match for what he perceived to be its defensive tactics. He compared them to those adopted by Stoke, which beat City 1-0 in its last home game.
“Today was (our) best game of the season, with the character to play against a big team with very good players that were just defending,” Pellegrini said.
Dropping points for the first time this season, Chelsea still ended the weekend with a three-point lead over Southampton and its hardest match out of the way.
Photo via Twitter/@GOAL_ID
