• Premier League

Complacency could kill Chelsea's season, says Nemanja Matic

Nemanja Matic has been impressive form in the centre of midfield for Chelsea this season © Getty Images

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Nemanja Matic may be confident enough to suggest that Chelsea have the quality to match Arsenal's Invincibles but he is warning team-mates that just one slip-up could derail their season.

The midfielder has gone off-message by suggesting Jose Mourinho's side are capable of going unbeaten throughout their Premier League campaign, a feat famously achieved by Arsenal in 2003-04 but already ruled out by the Stamford Bridge manager.

But Matic warned his Chelsea team-mates they may need to achieve such consistency to avoid the bitter disappointment he suffered from a similar position with Benfica.

"Of course we feel we can carry on winning, the confidence is there," he said. "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 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.

"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."

Chelsea's players have largely shied away for talk of them becoming the new Invincibles but, while Matic remained cautious, he was also upbeat.

"We are in a determined mood and there is more pressure for us because we want to go through the season unbeaten," he added. "We want to be the new Invincibles.

"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."

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