Fulham thrashed a woeful Manchester United side 3-0 at Craven Cottage to inflict the champions' fifth Premier League defeat of the season.
Goals from Danny Murphy (pictured), the excellent Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff gave Roy Hodgson's men victory against a United side that found themselves completely outplayed, both individually and collectively.
Chelsea can go six points clear of United if they beat West Ham on Sunday. Fulham stay ninth but consolidate their position in the top half of the table.
Sir Alex Ferguson may point out that he was missing four fifths of his first choice back five - Edwin van der Sar, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand and John O'Shea - while Jonny Evans, Wes Brown, Rafael Da Silva and Owen Hargreaves were also unavailable.
However, only the Scotsman will know why his solution was to organise his side into a 3-5-2 formation with his one senior defender - Patrice Evra - playing wide on the left side of midfield.
A back three of Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher and Ritchie De Laet would hardly be worthy of relegation strugglers, let alone championship contenders, and Fulham naturally set about using Zamora's physical presence up front.
The big striker, who has hit a rich vein of goalscoring form, was a constant menace, and he set up a glorious chance for Zoltan Gera on 17 minutes, knocking the ball down only to see the Hungarian's volley saved brilliantly by Tomasz Kuszczak. But five minutes later Fulham were in front.
Murphy carved out a reputation for scoring against United when he played for Liverpool, and is doing the same in the white of Fulham.
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