THE best midfielder in the world.

That's what Luiz Felipe Scolari says of his man, Frank Lampard.

The England midfielder starred in and scored once in Chelsea's 5-0 demolition of Sunderland at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

And with that second-half headed goal, Lampard went into the history books - it was the 100th league goal of his career.

Said Scolari: 'Lampard can score 150 goals in his career. One goal every two or three games is fantastic for a midfielder.

'I think this season we need to think who is the best in the world. It is Frank Lampard.'

Chelsea captain John Terry shares his manager's view.

He said recently: 'I'm going to be biased and say he is the best, but I really do think that. No one is playing better than him at the moment and he does it season after season. He is in a different class.

'He's not just done it for one year and tailed off as we have seen a lot of players do. We have seen him for the past four, five, six years playing at a top level, scoring goals, passing brilliantly and working on things he's not so good at in training.

'He works so hard on his shooting and his running off the ball.

'When we go on a warm-down, he'll be doing laps around the field on his own. He is an inspiration to myself and everyone else in the team to push on and give it everything in our short careers.'

Lampard has also been an inspiration to fringe players. One of them, Steve Sidwell, who has since left Chelsea, said: 'I knew Frank was a fantastic player but being that close to him for a year, I have to say he is the best professional I have worked with by an absolute mile.

'The day I left I spoke to him and said: 'It has been a pleasure to be with you this year' as I picked up a lot of stuff off him.

Impressive

'I learnt a lot from him like his positional play - where he is around the pitch, his passing, his vision and his fitness. He's great at timing his runs, which is the most important thing because if you time your run to perfection you have a golden opportunity of scoring.

'Every day in training you got 110 per cent out of Frank which is impressive. You look at players on extraordinary amounts of money and some ease off.

'But even after Frank signed his new deal he was still putting in extra performances which is what makes him a top player.'

Saturday was also a day to celebrate for Emile Heskey, whose injury-time goal for Wigan in the 2-1 win over Portsmouth, was his 100th Premier League goal of his career.

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