Gary Cahill believes Chelsea’s convincing 4-0 Champions League victory over Maccabi Tel Aviv has given the team the morale boost they desperately needed before they face Arsenal on Saturday at Stamford Bridge.
A run of poor Premier League results has left Chelsea 17th in the table, 11 points behind Manchester City but Wednesday’s dominant performance eased some of the early pressure on José Mourinho.
“It was the ideal game for us,” said Cahill. “We were dominant throughout, kept a clean sheet and scored four goals. It was exactly what we were looking for to try to get us up and running.
“It means we’ll go into training in better spirits than we have been going into training. Happier, more lively. Saturday is a huge game. I’m not going to say it’s going to have an absolutely massive impact on that because it probably won’t but in terms of the feel-good factor around us, it certainly will.
“It’s normal when you’ve had a bad run or you lose games that certain players dip in confidence, that’s just natural. The only thing that turns that around is winning games. That is why [beating Maccabi] was so pleasing. That’s the only thing that can turn things around: win, win, win. And we’ve got another chance to do that on Saturday.”
Cahill said the fact Arsenal struggled in their Champions League fixture, beaten 2-1 at Dinamo Zagreb, would give Chelsea a psychological edge but said both sides would put European results out of their minds.
“No one will go out on this pitch thinking about mid-week,” he said. “Both teams will be fully focused on what they’ve got to do. For us we want to build confidence. For them they will want a response [after the Dinamo result]. I don’t think it will have a major impact.”
Cahill had special praise for one of Chelsea’s outstanding performers against Maccabi Tel Aviv, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who before the game had only 17 minutes of first-team football behind him this season.
“He did very well, he’s a fantastic lad, a down to earth guy who works hard in training. He looks a complete player for me.
Obviously time will tell how he develops and how he does here. I can only speak for when I’ve seen him in training and worked alongside him but he’s top drawer.”
Chelsea will be without Pedro and Willian for the Arsenal game – the former having picked up an injury in the league defeat to Everton and the latter withdrawn midway through the first-half of the win over Maccabi. Oscar will be available though, having returned to action on Wednesday after his knee injury.
“It was fantastic to see him back out there and Ramires as well,” said Cahill. “Oscar is a top player for Chelsea, for Brazil, so to have him back out there was great.”
