Hasselbaink came off the bench to score his 100th, 101st and 102nd Premiership goals and fire Chelsea to a 5-2 victory over bottom-side Wolves.

The win allowed Claudio Ranieri's men to cut Arsenal's lead at the top back to six points ahead of the Gunners clash with Manchester United at Highbury on Sunday.

Chelsea went ahead inside four minutes after when Dutch defender Mario Melchiot finished off a move down the right that he had started himself.

The Blues had enough chances to kill the match before Henri Camara equalised for Wolves, who went on to take a shock lead through Jody Craddock 12 minutes after the break.

Chelsea's star quality finally told however, Frank Lampard quickly equalising with a stunning 25-yard strike before Hasselbaink secured the win in stunning fashion with a hat-trick in the last 13 minutes of the match.

"There has always been unity here," said Hasselbaink as he reacted to the ongoing speculation over the future of Ranieri.

"It's a bit hyped up in the press, we just have to keep going and do what we have to do.

"We know Arsenal are strong but if we keep on winning hopefully they will slip up."

Charlton's hopes of Champions League football next season suffered a severe setback when they went down to a 2-1 home defeat by Aston Villa at The Valley.

Darius Vassell caught the eye of watching England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson by equalising for Villa after Carlton Cole had given Charlton an early lead.

Jlloyd Samuel, who has been called into the England squad to face Sweden in Gothenborg on Wednesday, then snatched all three points for David O'Leary's side with a goal nine minutes after the break.

At the bottom, Leeds slipped deeper into the mire after a 4-1 defeat at Birmingham and Portsmouth escaped from the drop zone with a 2-1 win at Blackburn that drags them back into the survival dogfight.

Two goals apiece from Bryan Hughes and Mikael Forssell kept Birmingham's bid for a place in Europe on track after Mark Viduka had given Leeds a third-minute lead.

Things could have been very different if Viduka had taken a simple chance to put his side two up before Hughes equalised, but manager Eddie Gray blamed sloppy defending rather than wayward finishing for the defeat.

Nigerian striker Aiyegbeni Yakubu was Portsmouth's hero, his 82nd-minute strike securing a 2-1 win over Blackburn that was the south coast side's first away win of the season.

The priceless victory came after Turkish midfielder Tugay had cancelled out Teddy Sheringham's early opener for the visitors.

Manchester City also remain dangerously close to the relegation zone after a goalless draw at home to Fulham.

Everton edged a little closer to safety with a 1-1 draw at home to Middlesbrough. But David Moyes's men were left bitterly frustrated having gone ahead through Thomasz Radzinski 12 minutes from the time only to concede an equaliser five minutes later to Joseph Desire Job.

A spectacular Rory Delap strike mid-way through the second half was enough to give Southampton a 1-0 win in their mid-table battle with Tottenham at St Mary's.