Chelsea thrashed Aston Villa 7-1 to keep the pressure on defending champion Manchester United, but Arsenal lost ground in the English Premier League title race by drawing 1-1 with Birmingham on Saturday.
Frank Lampard scored four to lift his Chelsea tally to 151 and his club to the top of the standings, although United had a chance to return to the summit by beating Bolton in the late kickoff.
Samir Nasri put third-place Arsenal ahead in the 82nd minute at Birmingham, but Kevin Phillips levelled in stoppage time.
Tottenham strengthened its grip on fourth place as Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjcar scored in a 2-0 victory against former club Portsmouth, which is bottom and doomed to relegation.
The other two teams in the drop zone are Burnley and Hull, which moved level with West Ham by beating Fulham 2-0 as the 17th-place Hammers lost 1-0 at Stoke. Next-from-bottom Burnley hosts Blackburn on Sunday.
Wolverhampton went five points clear of the bottom three by drawing 0-0 with Everton.
Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti sprung a surprise by leaving top-scorer Didier Drogba on the bench, but the striker was never needed.
Lampard netted his first after 15 minutes by turning Florent Malouda’s low cross past Brad Friedel at the far post.
But Chelsea’s Yuri Zhirkov allowed John Carew to ghost into space at the far post to meet Ashley Young’s curling cross and level for Villa.
Zhirkov made amends just before halftime when he earned a penalty after being fouled by Villa defender James Collins.
Lampard converted the spot-kick and there was no way back for Villa as Chelsea added five more after the break in an ominous prelude to their FA Cup semifinal meeting in two weeks.
Lampard scored again from the penalty spot - after Zhirkov was fouled by Richard Dunne - in between Malouda’s two goals.
Substitute Salomon Kalou grabbed Chelsea’s sixth before Lampard rounded off the rout to become the club’s third all-time top-scorer.
“I’m very proud - I’ve passed Peter Osgood, I took a few more games,” Lampard said. “I missed a couple of penalties in training on Friday and I know Brad Friedel is a top keeper and they can save them if they go the right way, so I wanted to put my foot through it.”
At Birmingham, Arsenal’s performance was a shadow of Chelsea’s. Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s introduction of Nasri and Andrei Arshavin with 20 minutes to go breathed new life into Arsenal’s game plan.
It looked to have paid off when Nasri fired in from 20 metres (yards). But in the first minute of added time, an attempted clearance in the box struck Phillips and the ball looped back over goalkeeper Manuel Almunia into the net.
“I thought we were closer to scoring the second goal than to losing 2-1,” Wenger said. “We were a bit naive and not killer enough. The last thing we wanted was a free kick and unfortunately we were punished. The pitch is a massive handicap - you can’t play football on it.”
There was another meeting of FA Cup semifinalists at White Hart Lane with Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham cruising past his former club, Portsmouth.
Crouch, who followed Redknapp from Portsmouth, was left unmarked to head in Gareth Bale’s cross and claim his first goal in 12 matches.
Spurs hit the target again before the break when right back Kyle Walker on his debut pulled the ball back to Luka Modric, whose shot struck Hayden Mullins and Kranjcar flicked past goalkeeper David James.
James limped off before the end, while both Hermann Hreidarsson and Danny Webber were stretchered off to add to Portsmouth’s injury problems.
Only 13 years ago, Hull played Fulham in the fourth tier of English football and this win boosts the northeast club’s hopes of making the League Championship.
The breakthrough came after 16 minutes when striker Jozy Altidore was wrestled to the ground in the penalty area by Chris Smalling and Jimmy Bullard netted from the spot against his former club. Craig Fagan headed in Hull’s second at the start of the second-half.
Gianfranco Zola’s difficult week as West Ham manager worsened with Ricardo Fuller grabbing the only goal of the game at Upton Park after beating three Hammers defenders.
