Gary Cahill on trust and confidence during ‘very big week’ in Premier League title race

Chelsea emerged from a hard-fought battle against Liverpool at Anfield with a point yesterday, a point that could’ve been three had Diego Costa converted his penalty that he won after being fouled by Joel Matip. However, Costa’s attempt — with Hazard off and Fabregas not on yet, the responsibility fell to Costa — was saved by Simon Mignolet and Chelsea had to settle for the draw.

Nevertheless, acting captain Gary Cahill has chosen to concentrate on the positives of the result, especially considering how hard the defence had to work to keep Liverpool at bay.

"We dug in and it’s a hard place to go. Physically it was a tough test for us but we played well until the end. When you get a penalty it’s a great opportunity, but never mind."

"Diego’s scored so many important goals for us this season so it’s no problem. We showed a lot of character and on reflection a draw isn’t the worst result for us."

"It was a great start for us, we’re disappointed with their goal but I thought we controlled the game reasonably well. Obviously they were always going to be a threat. They had a lot of attacks in the second half and we had to defend well."

While Chelsea weren’t able to consistently find coherence in attack or in possession until late on, the Blues were in tune in defence. We don’t have to look much further than David Luiz or N'Golo Kanté and his 15 tackles to pick out a truly fantastic performance, for example.

"I feel confident in my team-mates and the way we’re working. I feel confident going out onto the pitch with these boys but we know how difficult it is to win this league. We’ve done it before and we’ve failed before, so there will be no complacency."

Despite not taking all three points, Chelsea still managed to improve our league standing, increasing the gap at the top to 9 points thanks to Arsenal losing at home and Spurs dropping points away to the worst team in the league. Just goes to show there are no easy points in the Premier League.

Next up are Arsenal themselves, and a chance to increase the lead even further (Spurs play away to Liverpool).

"Seeing the other results, it’s not a bad point for us and it was a fantastic save from the penalty, otherwise we would have gone home with all three."

"We keep going because we want to win the league, it’s as simple as that. This is a very big week for us."

-Gary Cahill; source: Chelsea FC