Frank Lampard wants to stay with Manchester City for the rest of the season and fight Chelsea for the Barclays Premier League title.

Lampard, who is scheduled to return to parent club New York City next month to start preparing for life in the MLS, came off the bench to score City’s second against Southampton.

Ten-man City - who beat Ronaldo Koeman’s side 3-0 at St Mary’s - are now within six points of Chelsea following a dramatic weekend.

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The Manchester City team celebrate with Frank Lampard after he scored their second goal of the day

Lampard fires past Fraser Forster in the Southampton goal to put Man City 2-0 up on Sunday

Manuel Pellegrini is also in favour of Lampard, who is 36, remaining with City until the end of the season, but the complication is the start of the MLS in March.

He said: ‘We will sit down in December and decide what happens. He is a top professional.’

The reigning champions reduced the gap at the top of the table to six points after goals from Yaya Toure, Lampard and left-back Gael Glichy. Eliaquim Mangala was sent off for two bookings.

Pellegrini said: ‘We have to play 25 games more and it’s a lot of points. No one knows what happens in the future.

‘In one week, you can change things. Chelsea are playing very well, but let’s see what happens in the future. We just have to work on us.

‘There are many things we can complain about this year, such as the team conceding too many goals and not scoring as many as last season, but the only thing we cannot complain about is the spirit, the personality and ambition of this squad.’

Gael Clichy scored his first goal for Manchester City with a late effort into the roof of the net

Man City goalkeeper Joe Hart (right) congratulates Clichy after his maiden goal for the club

Despite City’s sluggish start to the season Pellegrini maintains that the champions are in the mood to hunt down Chelsea over Christmas.

On Wednesday Pellegrini’s side travel to Sunderland - who drew with Chelsea on Saturday at the Stadium of Light - and Chelsea face Tottenham at Stamford Bridge.

Mangala will be suspended and Vincent Kompany is a doubt after being taken off with a hamstring injury.

But Pellegrini said: ‘I am very pleased because we beat a strong Southampton team. Today was not a scoreline they deserved because they are a strong team, they defend well, so to beat them 3-0 was very good.’

Pellegrini even overlooked the dreadful decision by referee Mike Jones to caution Sergio Aguero for diving when he was clearly fouled inside the area by Southampton captain Jose Fonte.

Lampard celebrates his fifth goal for the club with Aguero, after a typical finish from the edge of the box

Frank Lampard, on as a substitute, received James Milner's centre to strike from 20 yards past Forster

He added: ‘I thought it was a penalty but I’m not the referee. One thing I was sure was Sergio never dived. He doesn’t try to cheat the referee. He tries to support the team, so he wouldn’t have done it that way. It’s not frustrating and it’s not important what happened. The referee made the mistake.’

Pellegrini also accepted that Mangala deserved to be sent off. He was given a yellow card in the first half when he brought down Dusan Tadic and sent off when Toure’s mistake forced him to bring down Shane Long.

Pellegrini: ‘It was the correct decision. They were fouls. But with 10 men we tried to score another goal.

‘Mangala played very well. It was an unnecessary foul. It was not Mangala who lost the ball. He and Kompany played very well.’

Referee Mike Jones booked Aguero as Stevan Jovetic and Samir Nasri go to remonstrate with the official

Southampton defender Fonte makes clear contact with Aguero as the Argentine falls to the ground in the box

Southampton were well beaten. Koeman, who was forced into a change at half-time because of an injury to midfielder Morgan Schneiderlin, has big tests at Arsenal and at home to Manchester United in their next two games.

Koeman said: ‘We don’t have 24 players like they have to change in the second half. We know that.

‘But if you do these kind of mistakes – the first goal, maybe it was a bit unlucky – it was not good enough. You have to be good to have a good chance for a point or three points.

‘We will write this off because we didn’t show something different. But if we are the fifth in the league, still we are very happy.

‘On Wednesday we will get a new opportunity to show the qualities. Okay, there’s no time to be disappointed. We did too many mistakes and we were punished for that, because they have a very strong team and very good players. We knew that before. We saw it today.