Birmingham, England – Frank Lampard became Chelsea's all-time leading scorer on Saturday, scoring twice in the second half to lift the Blues to a 2-1 victory over Aston Villa at Villa Park.
Christian Benteke had given Villa a first-half lead, but Lampard's brace increased his tally to a club-high 203 goals to all but secure Chelsea's spot in the Champions League next season.
The Blues improve to 72 points on the season to move five points clear of fourth-place Arsenal.
Aston Villa, meanwhile, is not quite out of the woods in its bid to stave off relegation. The Villans remain on 40 points, five points clear of 18th-place Wigan.
The home side needed just 14 minutes to get in front as Benteke drifted into the penalty to latch on to a through ball before beating Gary Cahill and firing a shot past Petr Cech from a tight angle.
It looked as though Villa would go on to claim all three points when Ramires was sent off just before halftime for clattering into Gabriel Agbonlahor.
But in the 59th minute, the Villans also found themselves fall to 10 men when Benteke went from hero to villain with a rash challenge on John Terry.
Two minutes later, the match was tied as Lampard capped a well-worked move from Juan Mata and Eden Hazard to tie the all-time Chelsea scoring record.
Eventually, the England international took sole possession of the record by getting on the end of Hazard's low cross in the 88th minute to slot home a cool finish.
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