Gary Cahill is looking forward to resuming Chelsea's fierce rival with Tottenham Hotspur when the two London clubs meet on Saturday evening.
In one of the most fiercely contested games of last season, Chelsea came back from a two goal deficit to draw with Tottenham, which handed the Premier League title to Leicester City.
Speaking to talkSPORT, the England international claimed Chelsea have already won the mental battle after that famous match:
With Chelsea, all of the London clubs have that sort of edge, but this one certainly has a got a big edge. I think it's because of the history between the clubs and the history of results like last season that has made this fixture special.
It's still a game that a lot of Chelsea fans talk about now. It's a big game “ whether it's the start of the season, middle of the season or the end. That fixture, you get a sense of those European nights you play “ you get a sense it's a big game.
Getting to the stadium, that's when you'll tell and see that there's a buzz around the place. But ultimately for us and for Tottenham, it's the type of game of that players want to play in, and it's a case of bring it on�.
Cahill has fond memories of this fixture, having scored a volley Diego Costa would be proud ofagainst Spurs four years ago.
With the Saturday teatime kick-off arriving much earlier in the season, tensions may not be quite as fraught as last season's encounter.
Spurs recorded a new Premier League record with nine yellow cards andMousa Dembele picked up a six-game ban for poking Diego Costain the eye.
On reflection, England internationalCahill sympathises with the emotion of their rivals:For Chelsea fans, I'm sure they remember that day. But for Tottenham fans, it was obviously the end of what they dreamed of in the year. They'd been in fantastic form and been playing really well. Obviously, going 2-0 up at Stamford Bridge put them in a fantastic position.
But in that game, you saw every player putting everything on the line for the result. When we went in at half-time, there was a lot of anger and a lot of frustration and you could see that in the way tackles were going in.
I could see in the lads, that as long as we controlled the emotion we were ready to go back out for the second half. The next goal would have been crucial “ at 3-0 its game over “ when I scored, you could see the atmosphere and the momentum shift in the stadium. And then Eden [Hazard] at the end, [scored] with a fantastic individual goal that clinched it for Leicester".
Despite being at a less crucial point in the season,is is an importantgame forChelsea who arecurrently second inthe table on a six-game winning streak without conceding a single goal. Cahill is relishing the new formation that manager Antonio Conte has successfully put in place.
It's a system we're enjoying very much at the minute because it's going really well. It hasn't been a situation when we had a disappointing result at Arsenal, and suddenly changed the formation. We've trained exactly the same and it's taken a lot of work on the training ground to learn it.
We had the full week before we played Hull. I think elements in the first half at Hull, there was a bit of uncertainty, but in the second half we got into it. We ended up winning the game and dominating the second half .
Since then, we've really worked hard on it. It's not been luck, it's been a case of the players buying into it and doing a bit of classroom work on the training ground and doing what the manager wants “ because he's been very successful with this formation."
Antonio Conte says he knows how big today is for the fans... https://t.co/4UfIzy7WOu