Watch out, Chelsea are back: Cole

Chelsea left-back Ashley Cole has sounded an ominous warning to the rest of the English Premier League, insisting his side are back to full strength.

Riding high on top of the league heading into November, Chelsea have endured a nightmare run in recent weeks with a string of injuries to key players and just one win from their past seven league games.

But Cole, 30, believes the worst is now behind them as they prepare for Monday’s match with fierce London rivals Arsenal at Emirates Stadium.

“We’ve been disappointing in our last six games and it’s a big contrast to how we started the season, but we have a lot of big players back to fitness and it’s going to give us a boost,” Cole said.

“Any team who has their top players out is going to be affected.”

“The players who have come in have done a good job but you’re always going to miss JT (John Terry), Lamps (Frank Lampard) and (Michael) Essien. We seem to play better when they are all in the team; hopefully we can start to push on.”

“They’re major players for us and we have missed their personalities, desire, will to win and leadership.”

“We have been unlucky in games, even though we haven’t been playing well. We have still had a lot of shots and chances.”

“It has not gone our way but, now the big guys are back, hopefully we can turn our season around because it is getting to the important part.”

“We’re fourth in the table – we have to get back on track and start winning again.”