Chelsea moved back to the top of the English Premier League with an extraordinary 7-1 win over Aston Villa on Saturday to send a clear message of intent to their title-chasing rivals, dpa reported.
Four goals from Frank Lampard, two for Florent Malouda and one from Salomon Kalou eased the home side's worries after John Carew had earlier equalised for Villa.
The win puts Carlo Ancelotti's team on 71 points, two points clear of Manchester United, who play Bolton later on Saturday. Arsenal are a further point back in third after they could only draw 1-1 at Birmingham.
Despite resting top scorer Didier Drogba, it took Chelsea just 15 minutes to take the lead. Lampard stretched at the far post to meet Malouda's low cross before Carew scored a similar equaliser for the away side on the half hour mark.
But another goal for Lampard from the penalty spot on the stroke of half time restored the home side's advantage and the England midfielder doubled the lead from the penalty spot just before half time.
Malouda himself made the result safe for Chelsea 12 minutes into the second half with an excellent finish after good work from Yuri Zhirkov. Another penalty from Lampard five minutes later started to pile on the misery for Villa, and the situation got even worse for Martin O'Neil's men when Malouda claimed his second on 68 minutes.
Substitute Salomon Kalou made it 6-1 with an excellent finish after unselfish work from Nicolas Anelka, before Lampard crashed in his fourth goal of the game in the closing minutes to make it 7-1.
Arsenal's title hopes suffered a blow when Kevin Philips claimed an injury time equaliser for Birmingham City to cancel out Samir Nasri's goal just 10 minutes earlier.
When Nasri's fine goal from just outside the penalty area went in, the away side had thought that they would be moving to within just one point of the leaders Chelsea.
But a costly error by goalkeeper Manuel Almunia allowed Philips to score and damage Arsenal's title hopes.
In the race for fourth place, Tottenham moved five points clear of Manchester City with a comfortable 2-0 home win over Portsmouth with goals from the away side's former players, Peter Crouch and Niko Krancjar.
At the bottom of the table, a crucial 2-0 win for Hull City over Fulham pulled them level with struggling West Ham United, who were defeated 1-0 at home by Stoke City through Ricardo Fuller's goal. Elsewhere, Everton and Wolverhampton Wanderers played out a goalless draw at Molineux.