Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti was relieved to get back to winning back to winning ways with a 5-0 thrashing over Portsmouth.
Chelsea moved to within one point of leaders Manchester United thanks to braces from Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba while Frank Lampard rounded off the win with an injury-time header.
The victory came after Saturday's draw at Blackburn and a defeat to Inter Milan which knocked Ancelotti's side out of the Champions League.
Chelsea always looked in control of tonight's encounter against financially-troubled Pompey and Ancelotti admits he hopes the win will boost the Blues' confidence with the end of the season now only seven league matches away.
"We needed to have this performance, we needed to win," said the Italian.
"I hope that bad period for us is finished. We'll only know on Saturday whether it has but tonight we played well, stayed focused for 90 minutes and put in a good performance. It was necessary to do this."
Pressure had increased on Ancelotti following Chelsea's Champions League exit and he now faces a tough game at Aston Villa on Saturday before next week's showdown against United at Old Trafford.
"We'd lost some confidence in our play in the last few weeks, but we played well here," the former AC Milan boss said.
"This performance will improve our confidence.
"We are involved in the Premier League and the FA Cup, so maybe eight or nine games until the end of the season, so we need to maintain this period and this spirit to play."
"We have to prepare for these remaining games like they are finals.
"It won't be easy, but it's important to stay involved in the Premier League."
The game took a controversial twist just before half-time when Pompey full back Ricardo-Rocha had to be stretchered off with a suspected broken cheekbone after clashing with Florent Malouda.
Pompey defender Hermann Hreidarsson was adamant that Malouda had elbowed Rocha and the France international was given a yellow card for the challenge by referee Lee Mason.
Pompey boss Avram Grant chose not to take part in his post-match press conference to go to hospital to see Rocha, who will have an x-ray on the injury.
"Ricardo has gone to hospital to see how bad the damage is and Avram has gone with him," said Pompey assistant manager Perry Groves, who also confirmed that Tommy Smith went to hospital with a suspected broken nose following a challenge with Daniel Sturridge.
"Ricardo may not play again this season. I thought the challenge merited a yellow card but I only had half an eye on the incident when it happened."
Ancelotti believes Malouda did not intend to harm the former Spurs player.
"I saw what the referee saw. It was a challenge with two heads," said Ancelotti.
"Malouda put his head to take the ball, and Rocha was unlucky.
We're disappointed for him because he's injured, but Malouda did not mean to hurt him. It was an accident."
"The referee gave him a yellow card, which was right. Malouda put his head in, not his arm."
Portsmouth learned hours before kick off that they would be allowed to sell players outside of the transfer window to help ease their financial woes.
Groves admits Pompey's squad is already threadbare but insists the team will not be distracted by worries of a fire sale at the club.
"There's not too many fit players left," said Groves.
"You look at the back four and we had two right-footers playing at left back and right back and in the middle you have Marc (Wilson), who's been playing most of the season in midfield.
"From a financial point of view it's out of our hands. It's something that will be dealt with by other people.
"There's always been a fantastic spirit amongst them and they'll always grind out results for you."
Ancelotti, meanwhile, faces an anxious wait to see if Ricardo Carvalho will be fit for Saturday's game after he came off clutching his ankle in the first half.
"Ricardo turned his ankle," said Ancelotti.
"We don't know now if it's a big problem or not."
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