Ancelotti´s 93 reasons why Chelsea should be champions

Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti believes there are 93 reasons why his team deserves to be crowned Premier League champions.

The title will be theirs for the first time in four years should Ancelotti’s men win their final two fixtures.

The first appears to be a formidable barrier however as on Sunday they must travel to Liverpool, who must win to have any chance of qualifying for the Champions League.

Manchester United, who are away to Sunderland later in the day, are just a single point behind but Ancelotti was confident his squad possessed enough fire power to win at Anfield having already scored 93 times in the Premier League alone.

The Italian, whose side beat Stoke City 7-0 at Stamford Bridge last week, said: “I tried to change something in the season, to put a new style of play on the pitch. I think that we have, now, a good identity. If you look at the way Chelsea play, you can recognise our kind of play.

“We like to play football. We are training to do this every day, to play football from the back and to use the quality of our players. Sometimes, we did it very well.

“For some games I was very happy to watch my team play, like on Sunday against Stoke when we played very well. I was very, very happy that day.

“I didn’t think this team would score that many goals but we do try and play attacking football.

“We have fantastic strikers and we are a team that can use midfielders who score 25 goals in a season – there is nobody in the other teams like this. We have fantastic strikers and great support from midfield. Frank Lampard has scored 25 and Florent Malouda 15 and he’s not a striker. That’s the reason we’ve scored so many.”

Chelsea have lost five times away from home, as have United, but Ancelotti admitted his side were sometimes more vulnerable outside London than he could explain.

“In some away games, we had a lot of problems,” he said.

“Every game is a different story. I think that the good performance against Stoke will be good for us on Sunday because, when we won against Aston Villa, we won the week after at Manchester United at Old Trafford. I hope we can repeat that same level of performance.”

Liverpool suffered the disappointment of being knocked out of the Europa League in front of their own fans on Thursday, when a goal in extra time allowed Atletico Madrid to beat them on away goals.

Rafael Benitez’s side still have a chance of finishing fourth but know their destiny is no longer in their own hands as Tottenham and Manchester City, who play each other next week, have more points as well as that extra game.

Liverpool supporters are usually loathe to see Manchester United win the title and this year is certainly no exception as this would be the 19th to come to Old Trafford thereby eclipsing Liverpool’s record.

Yet with Champions League football still a possibility Liverpool need the points.

Goalkeeper Pepe Reina insisted he was not concerned who won the title.

“I don’t play for them, I play for my team and my supporters,” he said. “We will try to deliver a last home win of the season. We play to win on Sunday.

“You have to respect Chelsea. They’ve been the best team so far this season. But we have to pick ourselves up after Atletico, try to win our two remaining games and at the very least make sure we get the one point we need to get in the Europa League next season.

Benitez adeed: “Of course there is a belief we can still get the top four but being realistic we know it’s going to be tough because there are three teams above us.

“We know there is still a chance of finishing in the top-four so we have to keep fighting and win our final two games. We have to do our job and not think about anything else.

Chelsea are a very strong side. They have a lot of quality and we have played them a lot over the years. We have a good record against them in the Champions League so we will see if we can do well in the league on Sunday.”