A thunderous strike from Ramires earned Chelsea a 2-1 win over a gritty Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge.
Fernando Torres opened the scoring early on to give Jose Mourinho’s side the lead before Marouane Chamakh equalised with a sweet finish.

Ramires restored the home side’s advantage and despite both sides going close in the second-half there were no further goals.

The win, although unimpressive, moves Chelsea to within two points of leaders Arsenal.

Palace started well as Chelsea struggled to get into their stride and failed to establish a decent tempo.

However, the home side gradually got going and on 16 minutes they had the lead after Willian’s shot bounced back off the post straight to Torres and the Spaniard slotted home into the net.

The Blues almost made it two shortly after as Branislav Ivanovic surged onto Juan Mata’s pass but the Serb’s low drive went just past Julian Speroni’s far post.

The home crowd were stunned just before the half-hour mark when Joel Ward’s cross was met by Chamakh whose steered volley beat Petr Cech to level the game.

Parity only lasted six minutes however, as Ramires collected Eden Hazard’s pass before smashing home an unstoppable drive from 20 yards.

As long as the margin stayed at just a single goal the Eagles remained a threat and first Jason Puncheon and then Damien Delaney both tested Cech with headed efforts.

The visitors almost had an equaliser as Cech was forced into a good save from Stuart O’Keeffe, before Ivanovic blocked the player’s second bite at the cherry and then a combination of several Chelsea players mothered out the danger before Palace could get a third effort away.

Chelsea had a few opportunities to wrap up the points near the end as first Ramires was wasteful when attemptong to put Oscar through then soon after Speroni denied Demba Ba and Andre Schurrle.

However, it mattered not as Mourinho’s men played out the four minutes of stoppage time to hang on for a vital win.