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Frank Lampard's side left it late against its Midlands rival before snatching a dramatic 1-0 victory to move five points clear at the top of the table as Stoke slipped to third after Middlesbrough beat Birmingham City to move into second spot.

It looked set to be a stalemate in Stoke, where Viktor Johansson twice denied Victor Torp and Carl Rushworth kept out Ben Wilmot.

But, with four minutes remaining, a long throw was flicked on by Ellis Simms, and Mason-Clark acrobatically fired into the top corner for the Sky Blues, who then survived 16 additional minutes to see out victory.

Much of that time was added on as a result of Mason-Clark injuring himself in the process of scoring the goal.

"He has a big bang on his face," Lampard revealed after the match.

"It was an outstanding goal for the skill level of it. Not every player can do that. He was really good today. He came against a really good opponent but Ephron kept going at him."

Lampard also said he was thrilled to get the win so late on in what was arguably one of the biggest tests of the season so far for his side.

"It's a great feeling to win like that because it's a tough fixture," he said.

"We dealt with the game brilliantly from start to finish. The work of the players and togetherness and the tactical approach was amazing, particularly off the ball. We thoroughly deserved it against a very good team.

"They try to play. We pressed and we stopped them getting any form of control. The threat of their wingers is always there but our full-backs were amazing but it's hard to single our players.

"We can't get overexcited we are winning a lot of games but we can't think we have cracked it."

For Stoke boss Mark Robins, it was a bitter pill to swallow on the back of three wins prior to this fixture.

"I think the manner of the defeat is even more difficult to take. I'm disappointed with the result, I'm not disappointed with the effort we showed – the lads have given everything and we've been really competitive," he said.

"I can't remember any clear-cut chances that they had. There was some good play but they play for corners, long throws and put you under pressure that way.

"We didn't mark properly from the long throw and we got punished for it, that's the disappointment for us."