Chelsea star Cesc Fabregas on Monday praised manager Jose Mourinho as a master tactician after his plan to use Kurt Zouma to neutralise Marouane Fellaini against Manchester United worked to perfection.
"That's why Mourinho is who he is and has won what he has won. The plan worked very well," said Fabregas, who put his faith in the Portugese manager last year when he joined Chelsea aiming to win a Premier League title.
Now the West London club are on the precipice of just that.
Fabregas said he wanted to win the title as “soon as possible” as he gave an indication of why he’d returned to English football with Chelsea rather than Arsenal.
The 27-year-old Spanish international midfielder made more than 300 appearances for Arsenal in eight years with the club before leaving for Barcelona with just a solitary FA Cup winners medal after a string of near-misses, including a defeat in the 2006 Champions League final.
Arsenal had the option of buying back Fabregas when he left Barcelona but chose not to take it up and he opted to join London rivals Chelsea instead.
The table-topping club travel to Fabregas’s former club on Sunday with Chelsea currently 10 points ahead of second-placed Arsenal in the Premier League.
Victory this coming weekend would all but seal a first Chelsea title since 2010 and Fabregas told the club’s website: “We just want to win it. The sooner, the better.”
Fabregas, a World Cup and European Championship winner with Spain and nearing a century of caps, added: “We want to give satisfaction to the supporters. It’s been five years for them without winning the Premier League title; for me it’s been 27 years so I’d love to win it as soon as possible.”
Last Saturday’s 1-0 win over United saw Chelsea manager Mourinho deploy Fabregas further forward than normal in a bid to accommodate Zouma, who man-marked Belgium midfielder Fellaini.
“If I played there normally I would struggle a bit more to deal with long balls and the physical aspect of the game,” Fabregas added.
“We had to put someone on Fellaini, especially for the long balls, so yes our style changed. I thought Zouma did extremely well.
“I think his future is as a centre-back but he can do the job very well in central midfield when it’s needed. He’s a top, top boy. He wants to learn, he wants to play.”
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