Chelsea's Ricardo Carvalho: Title rivals should be worried about us

Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho believes the rest of the Premier League should be worried about the form his side are finding as the race for the championship hots up.

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The Blues have scored early in their last two league games and gone on to comfortable wins against Sunderland and Birmingham City at Stamford Bridge, and the Portuguese sweeper reckons it is a statement of his side's intent.

"The message to the other teams now is they have to be worried about us because we have got great players here and we are fit and wanting to play well and help the team to win the trophy," he told his club's official website.

"We made chances to score goals and we scored at a good moment. The Sunderland game we scored seven goals which is not easy and the performance was great after too many draws in the previous months.

"We showed our character and started to play better and to create more chance but you must carry that on. Today was the same, we started the game with a lot of confidence and everyone saw that we were a much better team than Birmingham.

"We are playing well but in the end you have to win trophies. Everyone knows how important the league is for us and we want to be at the top and we want to stay there until the end."

Chelsea welcome back Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou from the African Cup of Nations but Carvalho thinks his side coped just as well without the attacking stars.

"Everyone was speaking a bit too much that we could miss the Africans but we have a strong squad with players who want to play as well," he added. "They showed everyone that they have got quality to play.

"Now it is welcome to Didier [Drogba] and Salomon [Kalou]. They are important players and they are good to come back. In February there are a lot of games and they can help us."