Chelsea captain Gary Cahill has called on his teammates to push on and build some momentum in their next few fixtures, after ending a short-lived poor spell with victory over Watford at the weekend.
Going into the game against Watford, Chelsea were without a win in three games, having lost 1-0 to Manchester City and 2-1 to Crystal Palace before drawing 3-3 with Roma in the Champions League in midweek.
The Blues were lucky that Watford couldn’t take a host of good chances at Stamford Bridge on Saturday, and ultimately came away with a 4-2 win over the Hornets.
Cahill explained the way recent results affect the mood in the side going into games (via the Evening Standard):
It’s easy to play football when everything’s going well and you’re winning games back to back, it’s the best feeling ever, you go out and express yourself and feel as though you’re not going to make any mistakes,
The hardest thing is when things aren’t going so well and you have to dig in and get results, and Saturday was one of those.
Chelsea’s next fixtures are the visit of Everton in the Carabao Cup, a league trip to Bournemouth and a return fixture against AS Roma in the Champions League — followed by the return of Jose Mourinho to Stamford Bridge with his Manchester United side.
Cahill says the side need momentum heading into a tricky schedule:
I spoke in my programme notes about getting the consistency. If we get some games won back to back, all of a sudden it lifts, but we went into the Watford game off the back of two defeats and you kind of feel the weight. It’s all about character and we showed that.
Now we move onto the next one and try to build a bit of momentum that way. All of a sudden, when you get a few back-to-back wins you’ll see how everything lifts and we’ll get back to expressing ourselves as we normally do
Chelsea will now play eight fixtures before the end of November, and a total of 16 before the end of 2017, so the importance of hitting the ground running towards the festive period is huge, as Cahill highlighted:
When you’re in a difficult moment the mood is going to be slightly down because everyone’s disappointed, they want to win. But that’s not just the case here, or with this team, I would guess it’s the same at every other big club.
Chelsea kick off against Everton in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup at 19:45 on Wednesday.
