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Chelsea midfielder Nemanja Matic is the first Chelsea player to go on
record and suggest Jose Mourinho's side are capable of progressing
through this entire Premier League season without losing a game.
Mourinho and his players have been quick to downplay suggestions that
they can emulate Arsenal's achievement from the 2003-04 campaign and
become English football's new "Invincibles," but Matic has his eye on
that title.
"We are in a determined mood and there is more pressure for us because
we want to go through the season unbeaten. We want to be the new
Invincibles," he said in quotes appearing in the Daily Mirror.
"I want to win every game if possible. People can say the unbeaten
record is putting more pressure on us, but I would rather have it this
way because winning is never boring.
"When you win, training feels better and so does playing matches. I
don't know if we are better than the Chelsea team who won the title 10
years ago, but we know our qualities and we are a stylish team."
Matic went on to warn his Chelsea teammates that one defeat could
derail their Premier League title challenge, after he was a part of
the Benfica side that went through the 2012-13 season unbeaten until
their penultimate match, but still lost out in a tight title race to
FC Porto.
"Of course we feel we can carry on winning, the confidence is there,"
he added. "We have approached all the games in the right context and
tried to win them all, but I have been on a run like this before, at
Benfica, when we went unbeaten for nearly the whole season. We lost
the title in the penultimate game of the season when we lost for the
first time against Porto, who went on to win the title.
"We played really well the whole season and were unbeaten for so long,
but Porto also won every game. It was so hard to take. We lost the
title, the Europa League and the Portuguese Cup in two weeks. These
things happen maybe once in a thousand years.
"It shows what can happen and it's a lesson for Chelsea. It shows you
can never be certain of anything in football. If we want to win the
Premier League, we must continue playing like this in every game —
right until the end.
"Even if we are still top and unbeaten with two games to go, we must
not believe we have won it. We must not stop until the title is ours.
We must keep going until it is definitely won.
"Benfica is an example that anything can happen in the end.
And in England, there are a lot of teams who can beat you and stop you
from winning the title. We must fight and at Chelsea I believe we are
ready for that."
Credit: ESPN
