Lyon went to Marseille on Sunday for a match billed as perhaps its hardest game of the season so far and crushed the second-place team 4-1 for a club-record 11th straight win.

Eight points clear in the championship, Lyon goes into Wednesday's League Cup match against Paris Saint-Germain having scored 34 goals to win 13 of 14 games in all competitions.

``Things are going very well,'' Lyon midfielder Kim Kallstrom said. ``But if we start getting big-headed, things can turn quickly.''

However, Marseille president Pape Diouf seems resigned to fighting for second place this season.

``There is Lyon and then there are the other teams,'' Diouf said.

Lyon is nearly assured a place in the last 16 of the Champions League after winning its opening three games in that competition, scoring eight goals and allowing none.

``Our record is exceptional,'' defender Francois Clerc said. ``But it will be hard to keep that rhythm going.''

Goals are being shared around the team, while a tight defence has allowed only eight goals _ and not more than one a game.

Brazil striker Fred has seven goals, countryman Juninho has six, while Karim Benzema, midfielder Tiago, and Florent Malouda each have five.

Juninho's curling shot against Marseille was his 30th via free kick since joining Lyon five years ago, while the 18-year-old Benzema is considered the biggest rising talent in French soccer.

Lyon has reached the Champions League quarter-finals the past three years, but has struggled to hold onto key players and attract a big-name striker to help it push on.

An inability to match wages abroad has led to Michael Essien's transfer to Chelsea and Mahamadou Diarra's to Real Madrid, while Didier Drogba and Michael Owen turned down moves to Lyon.

President Jean-Michel Aulas, a self-made a millionaire who became president in 1987, hopes a flotation on the stock market will make funds available to solve similar problems in the future. He wants to float by December and hopes to have a 60,000-seater stadium by 2010.

When Aulas took over, Lyon has been in the second division for four years _ now there are eight players in France's squad.

Only Marseille, with the likes of Jean-Pierre Papin and Eric Cantona, has had such national team representation and that was more than a decade ago.

With domestic success abundant, coach Gerard Houllier's task now is to make Lyon just the second French team to become European champion _ after Marseille in 1993.