Chelsea's Matic urges team-mates to continue producing victories

Chelsea midfielder Nemanja Matic has urged his team-mates to continue the good work that has seen them go temporarily nine points clear at the top of the English football league.

The Serbian midfielder has played a big part in chalking up 11 victories in a row which have broken the club record for such a run in a single season and matched the club's best overall.

"We are very happy because of our form," Matic told chelseafc.com on Sunday.

"How we play is very good and our confidence is high because to win 11 games in a row in the premier league is not easy, and we are very happy especially because the last three games we played in a week we won all nine points and I hope we will continue like this."

The 28-year-old explained what it takes to put an 11-game run like theirs together with only two goals conceded.

"That shows you that the team is strong and is concentrating in every part of the game. As you see against Crystal Palace, they had some dangerous action but we all stayed together on the pitch and we follow the ideas of our coach and this the result," he pointed out.

"We can improve of course. Sometimes when we are 1-0 up we have to find a way to kill the game because 1-0 in the Premier League against a team like Crystal Palace is very dangerous, because they can score at any time, they have good attacking players so I am sure that we can improve and that he (coach Antonio Conte) knows what we have to do in the future."

Chelsea, the 2014-15 champions, went throgh a terrible run in the last season and with such a fine campaign this term, Conte's side has triggered talks of being favourites for the title, again.

But Matic said that there is still a long way to go before they can vouch for a top finish at the end of the season.

"It is a long way to go. We are now almost halfway through the season and we still have many hard games," Matic said.

"so we are not favourites, we are just one of the teams that can now win the title and I am sure there are more than five teams that will try to catch us for first position."

--IANS

pur/vt