ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Chelsea 7 Aston Villa 1:CONVICTION SHOULD not be a problem for Chelsea from now on. A staggering dismissal of a side who had arrived unbeaten in the Premier League this year and with the joint best defensive record in the division has provided the perfect fillip before a potentially decisive trip to Manchester United. This team have rediscovered their zest.

They are untouchable on occasions such as this. Raw statistics are impressive enough – 115 goals this season, 82 of which have been scored in the top flight – yet it is the style and swagger that thrills. The pursuit of the perfect approach has been woven into this club’s strategy since the relatively dour latter days of Jose Mourinho’s reign, but Arsenal are no longer alone in dazzling in London.

This was more reminiscent of the approach that won a first title in half a century.

“People forget that, when we won the league under Jose in the first year he was here, we played some fantastic stuff,” said Frank Lampard, whose four goals here took his tally for the club to 151.

“Look at the wingers we had: Arjen Robben, Damien Duff and Joe Cole.

“Anyway, I have seen United grind out results at times. There’s a certain middle ground: you want to play good football, but you need to have a fighting spirit to dig out results. People say that’s why Arsenal haven’t won anything for a few years.”

The ruthless streak, an ability to bully teams physically, has been retained and was evident on Saturday, even with Didier Drogba rested on the bench. But there is also splendid teamwork, as epitomised in the build-up to Florent Malouda’s stunning brace.

Chelsea were fluent and Villa’s capitulation after the interval was pitiful. Martin O’Neill was powerless to prevent the most comprehensive thrashing this club has endured in the revamped Premier League. This was a result to put a 10-match unbeaten run, which had included just three wins, into proper context.

Carlo Ancelotti’s priority now is to ally the scintillating with silverware. Using the week ahead, with United distracted by tomorrow’s Champions League quarter-final in Munich, could be critical. Chelsea have won their two encounters with their closest title rivals this season. To confront Alex Ferguson’s side between collisions with Bayern could be advantageous.

“The good thing is now we can go there with confidence,” said Lampard. “We’ve got the quality to get a result if we’re at our best.

“We’d been in a bit of a rut, not playing as well as we should have done, but things started to turn at Portsmouth in midweek. Our first goal there, when David James missed his clearance and the ball bobbled over a big divot, was a bit of a turning point and we’ve kicked on from there.

“The Villa performance was our best of the season. We played more expansively, opened them up and kept the passing quick. We have given teams some real beatings this season but to do it to a side like Villa says a lot.”

The visitors will shudder at the prospect of confronting these opponents again in an FA Cup semi-final next month. A gulf in class has been bridged before in that competition – Crystal Palace defeated Liverpool 4-3 in a semi-final the same season they had been embarrassed 9-0 at Anfield. Yet there were almost seven months between those fixtures for Steve Coppell to patch up his side’s self-belief. O’Neill has under two weeks.

The Villa manager accepted responsibility for this trouncing.

“The buck stops with me,” he said. “We deserved to be hammered, and I’m not sure the players could see that coming. I haven’t seen this sort of performance from them before and, from all of us, it was unacceptable.

“Sometimes, what can you do? We’d have been beaten by a Fourth Division side on the last half-hour’s performance and, if we play like this in two weeks, there’s no point us turning up.”

They competed for around 44 minutes here, John Carew hauling them level after Lampard’s opener before James Collins’s trip on Yuri Zhirkov earned the penalty from which Chelsea never looked back.

The procession of scorers thereafter numbed the visitors – Lampard’s second penalty, again won by Zhirkov; Malouda’s slick finishes; Salomon Kalou’s finish from Nicolas Anelka’s lay-off; and Lampard’s fourth in stoppage time.

The glut erased the memory of Champions League elimination, and the points shed at Blackburn six days previously.

Chelsea travel to Old Trafford with their challenge bolstered.

Guardian Service