Happy, confident, and fully fit, Ramires is ready to help the team fight for the title

With an exception or two, we've been pretty lucky with injuries so far this season, but after 17 appearances and just 5 starts so far, Ramires is on course to play the least amount of football since his professional debut season in Brazil with third division Joinville in 2006.  For somebody who's nicknamed the Blue Kenyan due to his endless running style, not being able to play regularly due to a lingering muscle injury has surely been hard to take.

"I am happy. I have been playing just five or 10 minutes before, but against Spurs I played for 45 minutes and Watford I played the full 90. I'm more confident because now I'm okay to play if Jose Mourinho needs me to play more games. I'm in the condition to do that."

"I have had to be patient. I stopped playing regularly for a long time and now for me it's very good to be playing more.  I need to do more work to feel more well, but now I can help the team and I'm happy about that."

Ramires got hurt against Manchester City in our sixth match of the season.  He missed the next eight, but the injury lingered even after he returned to training, limiting him to 5-10 minute cameos mostly.

"It was a muscular injury in my abductor. It is a difficult area to get injured because all your movement depends on this. It was difficult for me because one day it felt very good, others not so good."

Hopefully all of that is now completely behind him, and while it sounds like the midfielder's fitness is still not 100%, he's ready to make up for missed time in the second half of the season.

"Last season we were okay but this season we have improved a lot compared to the last few seasons - everyone can see that.  We were behind on points trying to catch teams in the past and now we're at the top of the League, even if Man City are right there with us. At this moment we know we only depend on ourselves."

"We have to make sure we get the three points in our home games and then we go to our away games trying to get more points and fight for the title. We are in a good position."