Chelsea have had a dismal start to the Premier League season, lingering around the bottom half of the table after five matches.
However, Spanish full back Cesar Azpilicueta believes that Chelsea can get back to the Chelsea of last season. Chelsea won the Premier League convincingly last season but have won just once so far in the Premier League this season, Azpilicueta scoring the winning goal for Chelsea.
Azpilicueta, when speaking to The Guardian, was reminded of Mourinho’s comments that a team full of Azpilicueta’s would win the Champions League and the Spaniard wittingly replied “Maybe on penalties” “It wouldn’t score many goals”.
Goals are not his forte, he has scored just five career goals in over 300 games. Commenting on his goal versus West Brom, he said: “I’m a defender and my first job is to make the team secure at the back; that’s my primary responsibility,” he says. “I get huge satisfaction if we win and don’t concede. That makes me happy; it means we’ve done our job properly. I feel better when we haven’t let in any goals.”
Chelsea have already conceded 12 goals this season, which is more than a third of what they conceded in the whole of last season.
People are passionate, they see things [in dramatic terms], we understand that. We want to change things as quickly as possible and it is true that we haven’t had the start everyone expected; we’re as surprised as anyone. But we’re convinced that with the work we’re doing we’ll turn things around. We all know we need to improve, to get back to last season’s Chelsea and there’s belief that we can do that.
Chelsea finally got back to winning ways in the Champions League in midweek, winning 4-0 over Tel Aviv. Mourinho said this after the match: “I’d forgotten that [winning] feeling. I can imagine what it would have been like going into training the next day if we had lost.”
Chelsea’s start is their worst start to a Premier League season in 29 years and they face Arsenal on Saturday in the hope of getting their season back on track.
“The objective is to produce a better performance on Saturday and win,” Azpilicueta replies. “We have to concentrate on ourselves and pick up as many points as possible. We know we have less margin for error, but we also know that in the Premier League every team’s dangerous. There are surprises every week, we know that our rivals can drop points.”
“Often in Spain you’re winning 2-0, there are 15 minutes left, and it’s as good as over. You control it and the tempo drops. In England, that doesn’t happen. They put another striker on, long balls into the area, free-kicks, corners. They push you back. And if they make it 2-1 in the 90, you still have added time and the ball just keeps coming. It’s a different mentality. Right until the last kick they give everything.”
Azpilicueta has been at Chelsea for three years now and the Chelsea fans have grown accustomed to him, and them to him. “I certainly feel appreciated at Chelsea,” Azpilicueta says. “People maybe [had an idea] of the supposedly ‘typical’ Spanish player … the full-back that will get forward but not know how to defend. But in any country you have many different types of players and that has always been the way I play; at Osasuna and Marseille. Some didn’t know much about me and I had to show that they could trust me.”
Chelsea of course, as previously mentioned, face the Gunners on tomorrow and Azpilicueta will be hoping for a win and a clean sheet at the back for Chelsea.
