Manchester City have made an emphatic statement about their Premier League title intentions with a superb 3-1 victory at Chelsea at the end of what has been a difficult week for Pep Guardiola's contenders.
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City's win followed a fine 2-1 win for Leicester City at Newcastle that also maintained the Foxes' own title push as they moved third in the table.
Even deprived of half-a-dozen players because of coronavirus and having earlier on Sunday expressed their disappointment that defender Benjamin Mendy had breached COVID-19 rules, City were back at their fluent best.
First-half goals from Ilkay Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne, answered only by a stoppage time consolation from Callum Hudson-Odoi, saw fifth-placed City move to within four points of leaders Liverpool while still having a game in hand.
It was one of their best performances of an uneven season as they jumped ahead of Chelsea, who now lie eighth in a congested top flight table.
"The way we won leagues and titles and other things is the way we played today," City manager Pep Guardiola said.
"The tempo we have missed in the past, today we recovered it. The players were excellent in every way especially with the ball.
"We cannot play like other teams, we have to play in our rhythm and attack in the right moment. We won titles in that way, more patient. We missed a bit of this tempo and today we had it."
Chelsea manager Lampard said the first half showed how far Chelsea still have to go in their development.
"Today was painful in the first half in football terms because their level of play show where we need to aspire to," he said. "They punished us."
The match was over 10 minutes before halftime after Foden set up Gundogan for the opener on 18 minutes and the England man then scored the second soon after from an assist by the irrepressible De Bruyne.
The Belgian powerhouse then put the game out of Chelsea's reach with the third 11 minutes before the break and Guardiola's men cruised through the second half before Hudson-Odoi's goal.
Leicester's hero was Youri Tielemans, who scored a superb 72nd minute goal to add to James Maddison's 55th-minute opener as the Foxes won thanks to a couple of rare pieces of quality in an otherwise ordinary game on wintry Tyneside.
Newcastle briefly gave themselves hope when substitute Andy Carroll scored his first goal for the club in more than 10 years as time ran down, but it was too little, too late.
Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers was not allowing himself or anyone to get carried away with the Foxes' third place.
Asked afterwards if his targets had changed, he said: "No, it's still the same. My ambition is to get into Europe again and for us to progress. We want to be a team that year on year can get European football."
Australian Associated Press
