Mourinho backs penalty villain Lampard

Jose Mourinho offered Frank Lampard his total support after the England midfielder missed another penalty.

Lampard has now failed with three of his last four spot-kicks for club and country.

His latest miss against Charlton did not influence the result at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea won 2-1 thanks to goals from Didier Drogba and Ricardo Carvalho, either side of an equaliser from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.

Mourinho said: “You only miss a penalty if you have the courage to take a penalty.

“He has the courage. He has taken penalties for two years and has taken some very important penalties for us, so I’m ready to carry on with him.

“I know I have some very good penalty-takers and, if the next penalty is a crucial penalty in the crucial moment of a game and he thinks it’s better to give the chance to a more confident player, I am happy with that. But I trust him as always.”

The 82nd-minute penalty, given for an innocuous foul by Talal El Karkouri, would have made the score 3-1 but it was saved by Scott Carson.

Mourinho said: “Frank doesn’t need sympathy. He is an unbelievable player and in my opinion he is playing well for Chelsea.

“I won’t give my opinion about England because that is for Steve McClaren.

“I am more than happy with Lamps. Sympathy is not the word because with me he always plays.

“He can be under pressure and you can give him some stick but with me he always plays.

“He will be out if I decide to give him a rest or in the Carling Cup at home but for me he plays always.

“He misses a penalty. Some of the best players miss penalties.”

Chelsea had to survive a late rally from the visitors, who had a Marcus Bent strike disallowed for handball, but held on for another home win.

Mourinho said: “I’m happy with the performance in the first half and I’m happy with the result.

“We should have killed the game in the first half. We did enough to score two or three.

“In the second half it was easy to see the difference between fresh legs of a team who could prepare properly and the heavy legs of a team with 14 or 15 players involved in international football.”

Ashley Cole started his Chelsea career on the bench but came on as a second half substitute with the scores level at 1-1. Within seconds Carvalho had headed in the winner.

Mourinho said: “I started with Wayne Bridge because Ashley played two matches with the national team and Bridge didn’t.

“And because Bridge did very well for us in previous matches and because Ashley has been through a very difficult period in the last few weeks.

“I put him on the bench because I was thinking the game could be difficult and I may need to make a change.

“He is more offensive, faster and a good crosser of the ball. He goes forward with power.”

Charlton boss Iain Dowie was not convinced about the disallowed goal or the penalty awarded by referee Alan Wiley.

Dowie said: “I haven’t seen the goal but it looked a much closer call than the penalty. That’s for sure.

“He gets it wrong, end of story. I’ve no problem with that. I get things wrong all the time. As long as he says so.”

Asked whether Wiley admitted his mistake, Dowie said: “You must be joking!”

Charlton lost Andy Reid, Djimi Traore and Souleymane Diawara through injury.

Dowie said: “I hate muscle injuries and both Diawara and Reid are muscle injuries and that’s probably because they didn’t do pre-season with us.

“Injuries have hit us hard but I thought the system we played hurt them.”