Shinji Kagawa's hat-trick helped Manchester United extend their lead in the Premier League title race as the Red Devils hammered Norwich, while Liverpool's Luis Suarez also notched up a treble in the Saturday evening encounter.
At Old Trafford, though, Manchester United cruised to a 4-0 win over Norwich City as Sir Alex Ferguson's side extended their lead over second-placed Manchester City to 15 points.
The win over Chris Hughton's subdued Canaries never looked in doubt, with Kagawa handing the home side a 1-0 lead just before half-time after firing home at the near-post following Robin van Persie's knock-down.
Kagawa added two more after the interval, coolly slotting home Wayne Rooney's selfless pass to quell any hopes of a Norwich comeback before dinking over Mark Bunn to claim his first hat-trick in United colours.
Wayne Rooney added gloss to the score-line, smashing in from 25 yards with the game drawing to a close.
Despite the loss, Norwich remain in 13th on the Premiership table.
A first-half goal from Demba Ba, meanwhile, gave Chelsea (third) a 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion (ninth) to relieve some of the pressure on manager Rafa Benitez after the Spaniard's extraordinary midweek rant against the club's fans and management following the FA Cup win over Middlesbrough.
In a game that the home side controlled from start to finish, Chelsea opened proceedings courtesy of a well-worked corner in the 28th minute.
David Luiz headed an Oscar delivery back across the face of goal, and former Newcastle man Ba was there to put the Blues deservedly ahead.
Chelsea continued to control the game and, despite proving unable to further capitalise on their dominance, they saw out the game comfortably, except for a couple of late saves from the largely untested Petr Cech.
Everton (sixth) maintained their push for European football next season with a resounding 3-1 win over Reading (19th) at Goodison Park on Saturday.
Goals from Marouane Fellaini, Steven Pienaar and Kevin Mirallas gave the Toffees victory after David Moyes' side had lost their previous two league fixtures.
Hal Robson-Kanu scored the visitors' goal late on, but Reading have now lost eight of their past 10 games away from home.
Anything Kagawa could do, Suarez could do as well as the Uruguayan serial pest scored a hat-trick of his own to drive Liverpool (seventh) to a 4-0 victory over Wigan (17th) and overtake van Persie in the Golden Boot race.
Inspired by Suarez and Philippe Coutinho, who laid on two assists, the Reds raced into a three-goal lead by half-time after Stewart Downing opened the scoring and the Uruguayan magician struck twice.
And soon after the break, the away supporters were saluting Suarez again when he raced clear of the Wigan defence to complete his treble.
Swansea City (eighth) extended the feel-good factor from their League Cup triumph with a 1-0 win over Newcastle United (15th).
An even game seemed to be heading for a stalemate before late substitute Luke Moore popped up to grab his first goal in over a year to consign the visitors to an unfortunate defeat at the Liberty Stadium.
Sunderland (14th) came from two goals down to secure a 2-2 draw at home to Fulham (10th).
Dimitar Berbatov stroked home a controversial penalty to give the visitors the lead at the Stadium of Light, before Sascha Riether's tap-in doubled the advantage.
A spot-kick from Craig Gardner halved the deficit on
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