Watford success can save our season, says Anelka

Nicolas Anelka believes Chelsea can use the momentum from the FA Cup victory over Watford to save their season.

The Blues and new manager Guus Hiddink were facing an embarrassing defeat against their Championship opponents when they fell behind to Tamas Priskin’s goal at Vicarage Road on Saturday.

But Anelka was switched to central role for the closing stages and responded by hitting a late hat-trick to ease Chelsea into the quarter-finals and quell the storm which has shaken Stamford Bridge since Luiz Felipe Scolari’s sacking last week.

“We have had a difficult period but we showed a lot of character,” Anelka said. “The most important thing now is to win games.

“It is always difficult when you change the manager. We had a strange period when we had a lot of chances but could not score.

“But I hope we have reversed everything and now we will win a lot of games in the league.

“It was very hard, especially against a Championship side. They fight until the end of the game and that’s what they did.

“But we deserved to win. We wanted to win. We knew we were capable of doing it. Obviously the new manager was in the stadium but it was good to come back in a winning way.

“In the last one or two months we have had a lot of chances but the ball didn’t want to go in. We had a lot chances against Watford but when you stay focused and you have a lot of big players in the team, you know you can score.

“We have a big team, big players, and even when we were losing 1-0 we knew we had the capability to win the game.”

With Chelsea seven points behind league leaders Manchester United, Anelka knows only a win will do at Aston Villa next Saturday to keep their title hopes alive.

Villa are third in the table and two points ahead of the Blues but Anelka is confident Chelsea can claim a crucial away success in Hiddink’s first game in charge.

“The Aston Villa game next week is massive because they are in front of us,” Anelka said.

“If we are still to be in chase for the Premier League we have win. We will go there to win.”

Hiddink watched from the stands at Vicarage Road alongside club owner Roman Abramovich and officially starts work with the squad on Monday.

“We know him as a manager and what he has done before with a lot of teams,” Anelka added. “We look forward to working with him.”