Carlo Ancelotti admits Chelsea must beat Aston Villa on Sunday before the champions can start to believe they have ended the miserable run that threatens to destroy their title challenge
Carlo Ancelotti admits Chelsea must beat Aston Villa on Sunday before the champions can start to believe they have ended the miserable run that threatens to destroy their title challenge.
A stuttering win over Bolton on Wednesday, Chelsea's first in seven league games, was hardly emphatic enough to herald the dawn of a new era, but it did bring Ancelotti and his players some much-needed respite and gave them the psychological lift of moving back into the top four.
The visit of Villa, then managed by Martin O'Neill, to west London last March marked one of the defining moments in Chelsea's first ever league and FA Cup double winning campaign as Ancelotti's side cruised to a 7-1 victory.
So far, the champions do not appear to have recovered from the shock of that defeat and their air of invincibility has certainly disappeared.
"It was a hard period - that's normal," Ancelotti said. "It was a very difficult period. We have to keep going now.
"We have to maintain good focus on our training and on our games." Whether Villa can exploit Chelsea's weaknesses is another matter altogether, however.
