Frank Lampard always gets Chelsea out of a hole and so it proved today as he scored the goal that downed plucky Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park this afternoon.
After a sterile first half, the England midfielder ghosted into the Rovers area on 51 minutes. And, seeing Branislav Ivanovic send in a brilliant right wing cross, Lampard snuck in-between the Rovers' centre-backs and dived towards the ball.
Almost a pitch height, Lampard somehow mananged to direct the ball wide of Paul Robinson, leaving the home side's goalkeeper stranded.
To say it was wha Chelsea deserved is to ignore the work rate of Rovers.
They are in a relegation battle and fought Chelsea toe-to-toe for possession of the ball.
Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas demoted Spain striker Fernando Torres to the bench, allowing Daniel Sturridge to play in a central position.
The tactic failed to work and Villas-Boas was forced to change the team around at half time - bringing on Torres for the ineffectual Florent Malouda.
By then, Rovers could have been one up. Yakubu missed a sitter after just 10 minutes. That incident resulted in Petr Cech suffering a nosebleed which halted the game for seven minutes. Rubin Rochina then tried a long-range effort after 20 minutes to test Cech's recovery, but his left foot strike was high and wide.
Sturridge, a minute later, attempted to nick a penalty after falling over in the Rovers's area after a fair barge by Samba. The ref, Mike Dean was having none of that.
A plane flying over Ewood Park with a banner trailing behind saying "Steve Kean out" did not affect the Rovers players as they started to take control of the game, midway through the first half.
Rochina tried an audacious shot from just inside the Chelsea half on 36 minutes.
Sadly it was more embarrassing than spectacular as the ball dropped well short and limped towards Cech.
Samba limped off with what looked like a hamstring injury to be replaced by Grant Hanley as seven minutes were added to the half due to Cech's nosebleed injury.
Juan Mata, quiet for most of the half produced a fine defence - splitting ball, but again Sturridge was too far off the pace to get to it.
Villas-Boas decided enough was enough and replaced Florent Malouda at half-time bringing on Fernando Torres to beef up the attack.
And attack they did. To the point where on 51 minutes, who else, but Frank Lampard ghosted into the Rover area and, unmarked, headed in from eight yards out from a deep, Ivanovic right wing cross.
Cech produced a double save three minutes later, first foiling Morten Gamst Pedersen's free kick and then from Hanley's follow-up.
Cech was then in action again parrying away a Yakubu shot after a mix up between Alex and Terry let the forward in.
Rovers can count themselves very unlucky when Ivanovic almost scored an own goal when he misconnected a Pedersen corner onto his own crossbar from six yards out with only two minutes remaining.
With a minute remaining, Torres did what he does best, missing a sitter from two yards, blasting the ball high of the Roves goal. But Chelsea hung on for the win and most welcome it was too for the 3,000 Chelsea fans.