LONDON, Oct 15: Chelsea blitzed Bolton with five second-half goals on Saturday in a display that demonstrated exactly why bookmakers are already paying out on bets that Jose Mourinho’s side will retain the Premiership title.

Two goals apiece for Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba and Eidur Gudjohnsen’s late strike floored ten-man Bolton, who had had the audacity to take a fourth-minute lead through Greek midfielder Stelios Giannakopoulos.

It was Chelsea’s ninth straight win since the start of the season and Mourinho’s men have now not lost in the Premiership in the year that has elapsed since Manchester City beat them on Oct 16, 2004.

Second-placed Tottenham, who added to bottom side Everton’s woes with a 2-0 win at White Hart Lane, remain nine points adrift of the leaders.

Manchester United are a point further back after goals from Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Giuseppe Rossi earned them a 3-1 win at struggling Sunderland.

With a game in hand on Chelsea, United can still entertain hope of overhauling the leaders, but Arsenal’s title hopes now look to have been crushed after Arsene Wenger’s injury-hit squad were beaten 2-1 at West Brom.

It was the Gunners’ third defeat of the season and they now trail Chelsea by a massive 14 points.

Bolton stunned Stamford Bridge into silence by taking the lead with barely three minutes played, Stelios running on to El Hadji Diouf’s cute pass before shooting past Petr Cech.

But Sam Allardyce’s side paid for their cheek after Chelsea switched to a three-man defence and four-man attack at the break.

Drogba and Lampard had put them in front by the time Ricardo Gardner was sent off for deliberate handball, leaving Bolton with no hope of resisting the rampant champions.

Manchester United soaked up 40 minutes of pressure from Sunderland at the Stadium of Light and then hit their hosts with a classic counterattack that finished with Rooney skipping round Kelvin Davis and finding the net.

Van Nistelrooy claimed his 10th goal of the season with quarter of an hour left and, after Sunderland pulled one back through a spectacular Stephen Elliot strike, Giuseppe Rossi completed a convincing victory for the visitors.

Arsenal took the lead at West Brom through young centreback Philippe Senderos.

But former Arsenal forward Kanu got Albion back on level terms before the break and Darren Carter came off the bench to earn three precious points for his club with a 76th-minute volley.

Liverpool made hard work of overcoming ten-man Blackburn at Anfield but finally secured the points with a long-range strike from Djibril Cisse that will have helped the unsettled French striker’s case for a regular place in the starting line-up.

Blackburn had to play for nearly an hour with ten men after Georgian defender Zurab Khizanishvili was judged to have been the last man as he tripped Cisse inches outside the box.

Tottenham’s strong early season form continued as they condemned Everton to their seventh defeat in eight league matches, the goals, both headers, coming from Egyptian striker Mido and midfielder Jermaine Jenas.

Newcastle’s recent mini-revival ran out of steam when they went down to a 1-0 defeat at Premiership newcomers Wigan.

Jason Roberts’ 40th-minute strike made the difference in the lunchtime clash.

Results

Chelsea 5 Bolton Wanderers 1

Liverpool 1 Blackburn Rovers 0

Sunderland 1 Manchester United 3

Tottenham Hotspur 2 Everton 0

West Bromwich Albion 2 Arsenal 1

Wigan Athletic 1 Newcastle United 0

—Agencies