Sacked Luiz Felipe Scolari nearly mucked up Chelsea's chance of Champions League glory because he wanted to please his master.

And the man hinting at the idea should know.

Frank Lampard is on his fifth manager since he joined the Blues some seven-plus years and 300 games ago.

And the midfield maestro with an IQ of 150 has studied what makes Chelsea tick this season and what doesn't.

The former Portuguese boss, it appears, wanted to satisfy owner Roman Abramovich's obsession with the beautiful game - but the veteran of six Champions League campaigns reckons that's not the way after Tuesday's advance to the quarter-finals on Tuesday night at the expense of Juventus.

Lampard said: "I think when you get to this stage of the competition the away performances are very important.

"And they're not always the most beautiful performances; but I think you have to be very strong at certain moments of the game. You have to be tactically very clever.

"I think during the qualifying games it wasn't like that.

"In Rome, I think we were very open. And also in Bordeaux we didn't play well. Now is the crunch time."

Things are very different under new man Guus Hiddink, and Chelsea have won plaudits for their grit and determination to got a result in places like Portsmouth and their 2-2 draw in Turin.

Lampard says this is down to the spirit Hiddink has helped engender in the team.

"I think the spirit we've had here for the last five years (has been important): with the quality we have in the squad we should have that. And that's down to the players, I think," he said.

"But at times this season I think we didn't have that, and it showed. Against Juventus, and the last five or six games, we've showed that when we're together; when we've got spirit; when we've used the quality we've got in the team - we can go wherever we want."