Drogba: Arsenal can ruin my title dreams

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The Ivory Coast striker watched in awe last night as the Gunners put seven goals past Slavia Prague in the Champions League.

Chelsea take on Schalke 04 in Group B this evening and Drogba admits that Avram Grant's men have a lot to do to catch up with Arsenal.

He said: "When you look at this season in terms of the Premier League it doesn't look so good at the moment because Arsenal are head and shoulders above us all and totally in charge of their football right now.

"I don't care about the weak start to the season we have made at Chelsea because there is an awfully long time left to compete for the title and though we might be in a delicate position I totally believe that we can end the season as Champions of England.

"The threat from Arsenal to all the other sides who think they might have the title in their sights is that they were already a team which played great now than they were before. Even though I expect Chelsea to be capable of winning the league, I have to elevate Arsenal to the top group of favourites for the title because of the way they are performing right now."

The striker was speaking for the first time since he gave an interview in France in which he said he wanted to leave Stamford Bridge because of Jose Mourinho's departure.

However, Chelsea's most influential player of the last 12 months has now made it clear that he wants to get back to normality.

"We are Chelsea, we have a reputation and some achievements to defend," he added. "We've set standards for ourselves and there is no way we can let them be eroded or belittled - not for any reason.

"We need to show our pride now and there is no way that we can spend all season losing key games and blaming it on the Jose Mourinho effect.

"He's gone, we are still strong and it's time to begin showing it.

"It's going to take a little bit of time to turn the team's attitude around and you can never ignore the impact of having missed so many key players because of injury."