Chelsea are not special anymore
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Aston Villa midfielder Stiliyan Petrov believes Chelsea are no longer the special team they once were under Jose Mourinho.
Third-placed Villa meet the fourth-placed Blues in the Midlands on Saturday in a crucial fixture that will determine which of the sides can still harbor realisitic hopes of catching Manchester United at the top of the table.
And the Bulgarian international, whose Villa side are unbeaten in 13 league games despite failing to win their last two cup encounters, believes the Blues are a shadow of the side that dominated English football for two seasons during the Portuguese manager's tenure.“When Jose Mourinho was here, they had a special team and they had more belief in themselves," he said. "They are definitely not the team they used to be under Jose Mourinho.
“A lot of changes have happened there but they will still be strong, they have players to win games. We will try to give them as much respect as we can but we will try to win as well.”
Martin O'Neill's side have not lost to Chelsea at Villa Park since 1999, winning three and drawing six of their last nine Premier League meetings.But Petrov says Villa must still be wary of their opponents, with the Londoners desperate to impress temporary coach Guus Hiddink, who will be taking charge of the club for the first time at the weekend.
“Every new manager wants to start with a win, so we are expecting a hard game," he said. "They’ll try to show that they can still be at the top but we’ll try to show them that what we have achieved so far is not just because of luck.”
The Villans have come a long way since their last encounter with Chelsea, where they were comfortably beaten 2-0 at Stamford Bridge earlier in October, recently setting a club record of seven consecutive away wins in the league to make them genuine contenders for Champions League qualification.
And Petrov says Saturday's re-match will prove a useful comparison to how much Villa have improved since their 2-0 defeat to the Blues earlier in the campaign.
“That is the game in which we were really outplayed," he said. "They were quicker, faster and stronger than us and it is up to us to see if we have taken anything from that game.
"We will find out if we have learnt from our mistakes, find out if we are we going to be the same. We have a lot of points to prove, we are not in our situation through luck but through hard work and good play.“I don't think we're in the title race because other teams have been there for a long time and know what it needs to be champions, we're just trying to break between them and show them that, in years to come, we can build up something and maybe one year we can challenge.”
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Agreed... Chelsea are no longer invincible nor special...