“The players are special,” said Mourinho. “The team is special. They fight for the club, they fight for the supporters. They are a special group and they are stronger for feeling this love and respect from the supporters.”

Bolton, a goal ahead after four minutes through Stelios Giannakopoulos, had no answer to Chelsea’s second-half onslaught which featured braces for Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba.

Tottenham moved into second place with a 2-0 win over bottom club Everton thanks to goals from Mido and Jermaine Jenas – his first for the club since his £7m (€10.2m) move from Newcastle.

Everton boss David Moyes has more pressing problems as Everton failed to score yet again and are now anchored to the foot of the table with just three points to their name.

Moyes admitted: “When you’re losing, you get quite down. We’re in a bit of a run that we have to try and get out of. We have lost a bit of confidence but I still believe in the players.”

Sunderland boss Mick McCarthy has vowed not to change his attacking instincts in an effort to secure Premiership survival.

McCarthy saw his side dominate the first half of their clash with Manchester United, only to get caught by a sucker punch just before the break and eventually slide to a 3-1 defeat.

“I would hate to be in the Premier League for 38 games and sit back, not have a go, not give my players a licence to express themselves against the best and still get relegated,” he said.

United took control with goals from Wayne Rooney, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Giuseppe Rossi. Stephen Elliott notched for Sunderland.

There was joy all round at Liverpool with Djibril Cisse scoring the winner against Blackburn. The goal was especially pleasing for the striker who broke his leg at Ewood Park last season and who is reported to be unhappy at spending so much time on the bench recently.

“The goal was important to me because I broke my leg badly at Blackburn last season,” said Cisse.

“I ran across to shake hands with the boss as a small message to show everyone there was no problem between me and the manager.”

Meanwhile, Blackburn manager Mark Hughes will appeal against the red card shown to Zurab Khizanishvili for a foul on Cisse.

Arsenal’s title hopes took another blow with a 2-1 defeat at West Brom and manager Arsene Wenger reckons the international break robbed him of three points at The Hawthorns.

The gap between the Gunners and Chelsea now stands at 14 points after substitute Darren Carter’s magnificent 77th minute winner.

As if things were not already bad enough for Wenger, Freddie Ljungberg is now out for at least three weeks with a hamstring strain.

Wenger said: “It makes a farce of the whole situation. There are some things going on with the international game that are unbelievable.

“We lost Alex Hleb for two months with a cartilage tear… they (Belarus) try to push him out to play on Wednesday, they wanted to inject him to play and it is just not acceptable.”

The form of striker Aiyegbeni Yakubu is the one bright spot for Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren as they settled for a 1-1 draw with Portsmouth.

Yakubu, bought from Pompey for £7.5m (€10.9m) notched his fifth of the season against his old club.

“It has been a good start for me,” said Yakubu. “I wasn’t worried about not scoring at first because I’m the kind of player who, if I’ve not scored in two games will be very confident about scoring in the third.”

Wigan’s impressive start to the season continued at the JJB Stadium against Newcastle as Jason Roberts scored the only goal of the game five minutes before half-time.

The visitors looked to have equalised when Alan Shearer’s header appeared to cross the line but Phil Dowd – who later sent off Lee McCulloch – did not award a goal.

Shearer moaned: “No-one is blocking his view, and I think he makes a mistake. If cameras can go in on the line to look at that kind of situation, it can be dealt with within seconds.”