Jose Mourinho’s men now have Arsenal in their sights this Sunday in the Community Shield, but after reacquainting themselves with the best in Europe on Tuesday night, Matic couldn’t help thinking about going for Champions League glory. A big difference to last year is the increased depth throughout the team.
Advertisement
“We just have to play as well as we did last season“.
I was very impressed with striker Christian Benteke, the new big money arrival from Aston Villa and particularly his stellar second half of the season for the Villans.
Fiorentina visit Stamford Bridge next week in the final friendly before the Premier League starts on August 8 when Swansea come to town.
Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, in particular, has bemoaned such a short turnaround in fixtures with his players on occasion forced to compete three times – two English top-flight matches either side of a Champions League game – in the space of eight days.
Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger has felt less need to strengthen a squad that retained the FA Cup and returned to the top three, although experienced former Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech will doubtless save them plenty of points.
“Everybody wants to win, everybody works to win, everybody has the ambition to win but not everybody wins regularly and so many times”.
“There is something in this country that goes outside my understanding”, said Mourinho.
“We, as Chelsea, we make our own rules”.
“We’ve said, “You are the champions, you made us champions, we trust you”.
The Portuguese wants two more defenders, with Augsburg left-back Baba Rahman another target, and will likely promote Ola Aina when needed.
Ahead of the curtainraiser against Arsenal, Mourinho emphasised that his appetite and that of his squad remains as keen as ever in pursuit of another league title.
“I see myself going into the seventies”, added the 52-year-old.
“The atmosphere is brilliant and the relations between the players is good ad between the players and me is good”.
Chelsea have brought in Falcao, who I think will succeed as the pressure is off and he can be a solid backup for Diego Costa.
Starting with a tricky away fixture at West Bromwich Albion, City will have to show their togetherness, but with a star-studied attack force featuring new signing Raheem Sterling alongside the prolific Sergio Aguero, the Etihad side should have enough quality to get their season started with a win.
Advertisement
United will be boosted by the new signings of Morgan Schneiderlin and Memphis Depay as well as World Cup winning Bastian Schweinsteiger, who could all feature in the Red Devil´s first match.
