• Premier League

Benitez: Chelsea still improving

Rafael Benitez believes Chelsea are yet to hit their peak after thrashing Aston Villa 8-0 to move up to third in the Premier League table.

Fernando Torres set the tone for the match when he opened the scoring in the third minute and the Blues ran riot at Stamford Bridge to secure their first back-to-back league wins since October.

But Benitez insists there is still room for improvement after seeing his side score 13 goals in their last two games after a 5-1 Capital One Cup triumph over Leeds in midweek.

"I can see the team improving the little things we wanted to improve, but still we can improve some things and I say that after winning by eight," Benitez said.

"The main thing is to win our games. You can do that if you can see the team improving. I'm sure it will be closer. We'll try to be as close as possible, but you can see the mentality of the team; even after six goals they were still pushing forward for more."

His opposite number Paul Lambert was more concerned with his side's performance, for which he gave no excuse.

"I'm not going to sit here and make excuses, we were well beaten, second best all over the pitch,'' he said. "We'll have to pick ourselves up and go again on Wednesday, hurt as we are. Nothing really surprises me in football. I've been in it long enough to know you have to be bang at it every single game, but we were well below our standard of late.

"We'll go back to the training ground, train tomorrow and Tuesday, and go again. You go into every game thinking you can win. The first goal put us on the back foot, two minutes gone with a great header, but football shouldn't surprise you. They're a really young side. Sometimes getting beat tells you a lot about people.''

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