JUST champion. Manchester United's ninth Premiership title in 15 seasons is moving ever closer and yesterday there was little that Chelsea, let alone Bolton Wanderers, could do to prevent it. Hearts must have sunk in West London as the goals flew in early, just as they had done when United visited the Reebok in October. Wayne Rooney, scorer of a hat-trick that day, shared yesterday's four with Ji-Sung Park, the first three being made by Cristiano Ronaldo in another astonishing display of virtuosity.

With tomorrow's FA Cup replay against Middlesbrough in mind, Alex Ferguson was able to take off Ronaldo and Ryan Giggs long before the end; indeed, he scarcely needed to send on replacements, so demoralised were the visitors. The one negative was an ankle ligament injury suffered by Gary Neville, who will be out for three weeks, missing England's European Chamopionship tie in Israel on Saturday.

Grim as it was for Steve McLaren to watch his most experienced defender being helped down the tunnel after eight minutes, he must have been encouraged by the appalling performance of Israel's centre-half Tal Ben Haim, who may well be up against Rooney again in Tel Aviv.

For Bolton the minuses were too many to tot up. Virtually the only passion came from bickering among themselves. There was a slight improvement in the second half once Sam Allardyce took up glowering guard in their technical area and United eased off, but it brought no more than a mysterious late penalty converted by Gary Speed.

"Are you City in disguise?"

the crowd were soon asking, which in these parts is as insulting as it is possible to be.

For the neutral it is a little depressing that a team in Bolton's current state should be sitting so comfortably in fifth place in the Premiership, albeit with no chance of catching the usual top four.

This was a fourth successive defeat in all competitions, shipping 13 goals in the process and Allardyce was forced to admit: "I can't understand the team conceding three goals from our own dead-ball situations. I'm angry with them not getting those things right.

"We're a side that has to get the basics right. I thought Ronaldo was stoppable if we wanted to." Such optimism.

Ferguson sounded like a man wanting to do another of his dances of delight but reluctantly reining himself in. "The determination they've shown gives us a great chance [of the title], " he said. "It emphasises the confidence of the team that they weren't deterred even by the injury to Gary Neville, which is a bad blow for us.

Cristiano's had an incredible season and his combination with Wayne Rooney for the second goal was tremendous."

Ronaldo's contribution to the first one was not neglible either. He shot away from Nicky Hunt down the left, cut along the by-line and pulled the ball back for Park to slide in. Neville was already off by then, his ankle painfully twisting as he fell under a legitimate tackle by Speed. But Ronaldo's trickery, invested these days with a new maturity, had quickly eased any worries that the tide might be turning against United.

Instead, Bolton, for whom Nicolas Anelka might have scored in the opening 30 seconds, were washed away.

In the 17th minute, as a Bolton move broke down, Rooney's delicious first-time pass sent Ronaldo sprinting at the defence only to return the favour for his team-mate to dink the ball over Jussi Jaaskelainen.

If the goalkeeper ought to have prevented the third goal only seven minutes later, credit was again due to Ronaldo for leaving a defender knotted outside the penalty area before hitting a shot that Jaaskelainen spilled into the path of a grateful Park.

Michael Carrick then sidefooted Ryan Giggs's tempting cross wide and the interval arrived without Tomasz Kuszczak having been tested between United's posts.

He was scarcely much busier in the second half, watching from distance as Ronaldo failed to touch in Gabriel Heinze's cross before being thwarted by Jasskelainen, and then as Giggs bounced a lob fractionally wide.

Alan Smith made a popular entrance and had only been on the pitch a few minutes before sending Rooney through to open up his body and score the fourth. Speed's successful penalty was as irrelevant as its award was obscure.