“I want to write history”- Chelsea defender sends direct message to Arsenal about Premier League title race

Kalidou Koulibaly vowed to write history with Chelsea and replace Arsenal as league leaders

In an interview with Italy’s Corriere della Sera (h/t Evening Standard), Chelsea defender Kalidou Koulibaly has vowed to write history with the Blues and is confident of replacing Arsenal as the league leaders.

After the humiliating defeat at the hands of Brighton and Hove Albion on Saturday, Chelsea are currently 10 points behind pace-setters Arsenal with 12 games played.

For Graham Potter’s men, the first chance to claw some of that gap back will be when they face the Gunners on Sunday at the Emirates Stadium.

Talking about writing history with Chelsea and taking time to adjust to new surroundings, here’s Koulibaly (h/t Evening Standard):

“It will be Chelsea at the end of the season [top of the table], I want to write history here.

“This is the beauty of football. I arrive with a coach who wanted me at all costs, and then he leaves.

“Both Tuchel and Potter play with the three-man defences, I was used to a four with Napoli.

“It’s another string to my bow, you never stop learning. I knew I was going to have a hard time, and that’s proved true. Even Zola and Drogba had anticipated that for me.”

The Senegal international has had a slow start to life at Chelsea. Getting a red card against Leeds United early on in the season did set his progress back to an extent. However, in the past few weeks, the 31-year-old is returning back to his best.

As he mentioned in the interview, he was used to playing in a back four with Napoli. At Chelsea, be it formerly under Thomas Tuchel and now under Potter, the three-man central defensive system is deployed with wing-backs flying forward.

It is a confident statement to come up with, regarding finishing at the top at the end of this season. Although Arsenal are top, we all know defending champions Manchester City are the team to beat in the league.

Do Chelsea have enough to usurp Pep Guardiola’s men this season? Doubt so. But, you can never say never, that too in a different type of season with a World Cup break in between.

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• Real Madrid wanted to sign Raheem Sterling but could not due to certain rules

After having a good spell of results under the new manager, the Blues did falter at Brighton, pushing them down to sixth position in the table. For them, the focus would be on getting back to winning ways and regaining a place in the top four sooner rather than later.