Thibaut Courtois reflects on Crystal Palace performance, squad depth and Chelsea's form

Over the weekend, Chelsea not only extended the current winning streak to a club record-matching eleven games, but also notched a tenth clean sheet for the season. Since the start of the streak, Chelsea have conceded only two goals while scoring 25 at the other end.

It's all working out quite well for Chelsea in every phase of the game, from goalkeeping, to defence, midfield, and attack. Thibaut Courtois, who’s leading Europe’s top leagues in clean sheets, is certainly enjoying the moment, as his colleagues ahead of him do their utmost to keep his workload to a minimum.

"It’s going very well. I didn’t have so much work on Saturday, there was one save low down to my left and I came to claim a couple of high balls well, so after that they had to put the crosses further away from me."

"In the first 20 minutes of the second half we suffered but I think when Cesc [Fàbregas] came on we found more balls between the lines and it became calmer for us. We had some good chances, we didn’t take them, but I think we deserved to win."

"It was a good clean sheet, good work from all the team and another victory so we’re happy. Now we want to enjoy Christmas and after that we have another important game against Bournemouth."

Next up are Bournemouth on Boxing Day, for which Chelsea will be without Diego Costa, who picked up his fifth yellow card of the season after an untimely tackle on Crystal Palace midfielder Joe Ledley. Courtois hopes that his fellow countryman Michy Batshuayi — or whoever else is chosen to fill in for Diego — can step up to the plate, and thus show the strength of our squad beyond the starters.

"It’s a big blow because [Diego Costa is] a top striker. He scored his 13th goal of the season and he’s in top form. He’s been one booking away for many games now, so if he’d had a bit more luck he would have stayed like that until the New Year, when it’s gone, but hopefully Michy [Batshuayi], or whoever the manager plays there, will do well."

"For the manager, it’s not easy to choose players. With Cesc, Michy, Pedro, Ivanovic and Zouma we had a good bench and to be champions you need not only 11 players, but 18 or 22, the whole squad. We have a good team and we try to prove that every week."

Regardless of who plays up front, the work in defence and midfield will need to continue. The midfield will also be missing a key contributor, perhaps the most important of all in N’Golo Kanté, so more than ever, we’ll need to keep on believing in the system and continue getting those three points.

"That defeat to Arsenal hurt us but we’ve come back stronger with the new tactics and system. It works well, everybody is doing their job and we keep on winning. The spirit is very important."

"This week was good because we played against smaller teams but they defend well and it’s hard to break them down. To win all three games 1-0 is very good and we’re happy. We now have two home games in front of our fans so we need to win them both."

-Thibaut Courtois; source: Chelsea FC