Chelsea 4 - 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers

Blues crush woeful Wolves

Michael Essien celebrates his second goal

Chelsea opened up an eight-point lead at the top of the Premier League with a 4-0 demolition of woeful Wolves at Stamford Bridge. Florent Malouda opened the scoring and a brace from Michael Essien and a Joe Cole strike completed the rout.

The Blues were three goals to the good inside the first 22 minutes through Florent Malouda and a double from Michael Essien.

Joe Cole's first goal for 13 months completed the rout in the second half as Chelsea set a new club record for home wins and kept Wolves entrenched in the bottom three.

The victory over Wolves was their 12th in a row in all competitions at home - the previous record was 11 between February 25 and September 17, 2006.

The clean sheet also saw them equal their record of 10 consecutive games without conceding at home.