Jose Mourinho was delighted with the fighting qualities demonstrated by his depleted Chelsea side as they overcame a first-half shock to kill-off Macclesfield’s hopes of causing one of the biggest upsets in FA Cup history.
A hat-trick from Frank Lampard and goals from Shaun Wright-Phillips, Mikel Jon Obi and Ricardo Carvalho put Chelsea into the next round of the competition after John Murphy’s equaliser had briefly raised Town’s hopes of causing a shock.
But Macclesfield’s dreams were cruelly shattered seconds after the re-start when goalkeeper Tommy Lee was harshly adjudged to have felled Andriy Shevchenko in the penalty area and was red-carded by referee Lee Mason.
• Mourinho: ‘I was going to rest Lamps’
Mourinho rested four regular first team stars in Claude Makelele, Michael Essien, Michael Ballack and top scorer Didier Drogba while injuries had robbed him of John Terry, Joe Cole, goalkeepers Carlo Cudicini and Petr Cech, Dutch winger Arjen Robben and defender Khalid Boulahrouz.
As if to underline their plight, it was 13 minutes before Chelsea managed a shot on goal but then they twice came close to opening the scoring in a matter of seconds.
Shevchenko forced Lee into a save when Jordan Hadfield had failed to control a loose ball in the penalty area and then Salomon Kalou shot just wide from 18 yards.
Their attempts were a portent of what was to follow though as Chelsea took the lead in the 16th minute through Lampard.
Kalou outstripped Carl Regan for pace on the left flank and when Wright-Phillips failed to fire home his cross, the ball fell perfectly for Lampard to slot home his 10th of the season from six yards.
The League Two side had come into the game on the back of eight wins and two draws under Ince and they deservedly grabbed a shock equaliser five minutes before the interval.
Carvalho was the guilty culprit for the champions when he made a hash of an attempted clearance to leave Murphy clear on goal.
The big Macclesfield striker made no mistake with his finish as he sent his shot through the legs of the diving Hilario.
But the joy of the travelling Macclesfield army turned out be short lived as Lampard restored Chelsea lead within a minute.
Alan Navarro failed to control the ball in midfield and when Lampard took possession, he sent a 20-yard drive underneath Lee to put the Premiership champions back in front.
Macclesfield’s dreams of a cup upset disappeared when goalkeeper Lee was harshly sent off by Mason for colliding with Shevchenko a minute after the restart.
The Ukrainian forward had been put through by Wright-Phillips but lost his footing and was already falling when he fell over the onrushing Lee.
Town, with no reserve keeper on the bench, replaced striker Matt McNeil with James Jennings while defender and captain David Morley went in goal.
Their plight was worsened seconds later when Lampard converted the spot-kick to complete his hat-trick.
Morley showed his prowess in the 54th minute when he saved superbly to deny Shevchenko as he burst into the penalty area in a bid to finish off a clever pass from Kalou.
In the 63rd minute though Macclesfield demonstrated their fighting spirit was still evident as goalscorer Murphy forced Hilario to tip his shot over the bar.
But the England winger finally found the target in the 66th minute when he got on the end of a Lampard cross to poke the ball home for Chelsea’s fourth.
Town, who had used all their allotted subs, were reduced to nine-men when Miles was forced to leave the action through injury and Chelsea hit a fifth in the 81st minute through Mikel - his first for the club.
The scoring was completed four minutes from time when defender Carvalho drove home from eight yards after Morley had spilled a cross from Wright-Phillips into his path.
• Mourinho: ‘I was going to rest Lamps’
Jose Mourinho revealed how hat-trick hero Frank Lampard would not have played had young midfielder Lassana Diarra not angered the Chelsea coach by arriving 40 minutes late for their pre-match team meeting before the 6-1 FA Cup demolition of Macclesfield.
Diarra (21), signed from Le Havre and being groomed as a natural successor to French holding midfielder Claude Makelele, failed to arrive at the nominated 11.30am start time and Mourinho duly axed him from his plans for Macclesfield and called on Lampard instead.
The England midfielder responded with a treble that killed off plucky Macclesfield who were reduced to 10 men at the start of the second half with a match-defining red card for Town’s keeper Tommy Lee.
Mourinho declared: ‘Frank Lampard should not have been playing today, he should have been on the bench because I like to always have some ammunition on there in case things are not going very well.
‘But Lassana Diarra was 40 minutes late for the team meeting. The meeting was set for 11.30am and he arrived at 12.10pm.
‘The meeting is for the people who are playing and I decided to play Lampard and not youngster Michael Woods because it would have been too much for him to start a game with that responsibility. So I started with Lamps and in the first half he was absolutely crucial for us.’
Lampard put Chelsea in front in the 16th minute from close range but Coca-Cola League Two side Macclesfield stunned the champions when a mistake by Ricardo Carvalho allowed John Murphy to fire an equaliser five minutes before the break.
But Lampard put Chelsea in front within a minute and when Lee was red-carded for controversially bringing down Andriy Shevchenko. Lampard converted the spot-kick for his 12th goal of the season.
The dismissal was a turning point in the game as Town did not possess a reserve goalkeeper on the bench so captain and defender David Morley went in goal.
But Chelsea completed a rout with further strikes from Shaun Wright-Phillips, Mikel Jon Obi and Carvalho.
Mourinho said: ‘It was a game we had to win because we have ambition in the competition.
‘We had to win because we are a team of professionals at a high level and normally Macclesfield are not good enough to beat us.
‘With the score 2-1 in the first half, the game is open and we knew if we scored the third goal, the game would be over.
‘When we scored the third goal and they lost the keeper at the same time and the game was over.’
Shevchenko looked to have slipped before colliding with Lee for the spot-kick and Mourinho defended the Ukrainian from suggestions that he may have dived.
Mourinho added: ‘I don’t think he dived. It looked a penalty. I feel sorry that it was a red card but it is the law for the game.
‘The referee cannot say `this is a rich team, this is a poor team, this is a top player, this is a boy’. The rule in the game is 22 players and all of them are the same.
‘If my keeper does that it is a red card, so if their keeper does it, it is a red card. It was not good because the game was over but it is the law. He had to go but I felt sorry for him.’
Mourinho then laughed at suggestions that he was suffering the darkest moment of his career after slipping six points behind Manchester United at the top of the Barclays Premiership and suffering with a long injury list.
Mourinho declared: ‘I am laughing quite a lot about it because also in my country it was written about the `dark moment of Jose Mourinho’. But the dark moment of my career is three draws.
‘It is second place in the league, last 16 in the Champions League, semi-finals of the Carling Cup and the last 32 of the FA Cup, that is a dark moment of my career.
‘It is an enjoyable moment for me to realise that a career of six or seven years with three draws in competitions is a dark moment. But my career has not been bad.
‘I don’t have motivation because we are top of the league or not top of the league, or I have critics or I don’t have critics, my motivation is always the same.
‘I try to do the best I can every time and that does not change. This result does not mean we are in a top moment right now because we beat a team with a lot of honour and pride.
‘We can say we played very professionally. We fought together and tried to hide the difficult moment we are living in.’
Former Manchester United and England midfielder Paul Ince, who has done such a sterling job in turning relegation-threatened Macclesfield’s fortunes around, failed to appear for a post-match press conference.
