Benitez bored of Lampard soap opera

13-Jan-2013 4:26:00 AM

The Chelsea manager is becoming exasperated by the constant speculation about the midfielder's future, with the 34-year-old set to leave Stamford Bridge at the end of the season

Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez is becoming increasingly frustrated with the speculation surrounding Frank Lampard, insisting his future at the club is "not an issue".

The 34-year-old midfielder scored a penalty in the 4-0 win over Stoke to become the club's second-highest goalscorer of all-time, overtaking Kerry Dixon with a total of 194. He now stands just eight goals behind all-time leading scorer Bobby Tambling.

However, Benitez preferred to focus on the performance of his team, rather than singling out Lampard for praise, stating that he must keep performing after talking "100 times" on the matter.

"It’s not fair to talk about one player," Benitez told reporters. "Frank is doing well but the team is doing a great job.

"If you analysed what we had to do; David Luiz was playing as a midfielder but today as a centre back and was doing a great job; Ivanovic, I trust him 100%, you could see today a great performance too.

"Azpilicueta played well, Petr Cech came back, [Eden] Hazard, [Juan] Mata, Demba Ba doing his job. I was really pleased with the attitude of [Fernando] Torres as he's fighting for his position so a lot of positives today not just one player.

"And Rami [Ramires] did a great great job because he is playing a lot of games with little niggles and is doing really well for the team, Bertand playing in another position, Ashley Cole. Its not fair to talk about one player after this great performance from the team.

"I was talking about this 100 times now, he’s under contract, he’s a good player, he has to keep performing and its not an issue at the moment."