Blank Cech helps keep Grant afloat

What bankrolling, billionaire owner Roman Abramovich wants, most of the time he gets and 47 days after replacing Jose Mourinho the Israeli seems to be ahead of schedule.

But while Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba grab the limelight by pushing Chelsea back into the trophy hunt at one end of the pitch, the efforts of the man at the other should not be forgotten.

Petr Cech goes into tonight's Champions League game at Schalke on the back of a five game run of clean sheets that has - at different times - been achieved without John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Bridge and Paulo Ferreira.

He has only conceded once in the last seven contests and the last goal that went past him in the Premier League was in Grant's first match in charge, at Manchester United in September when his side were down to 10 men.

When Cech didn't play in the Carling Cup against Leicester last week and Chelsea's squad rotation was in full flow, their defence was breached three times.

Yet it is not so much that that the Czech international is an unsung hero, he is just so consistently good many at Stamford Bridge take it for granted.

Cech said: "I hate conceding and am delighted with our recent record. I always do everything I can to keep a clean sheet and even against Manchester City when it was 6-0 I made sure I kept everyone organised at the back."

The 25-year-old holds records in his homeland and the Premier League for the astonishing periods he has gone without conceding and his current run for Chelsea of 450 minutes is making impressive inroads on the benchmark 1,024 minutes he set in 2005.

Despite the club's change of approach, no-one there will easily forget how Cech's absence last season with a fractured skull, along with Terry's injury problems, fatally undermined their title challenge.

Cech said: "The solidity we have should be the basis of our success. If we are not conceding other teams know that playing us will be very hard. When we go 1-0 up they know it will require a huge effort to score.

"It is good for our confidence to know that our opponents will need something special to get past us."

Schalke will know that as well as anyone after the 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge, and Chelsea were far from their best two weeks ago.

Tonight, the Germans have injuries to key players and are under pressure to pull a rabbit out of the hat after poor results in the Bundesliga.

Chelsea should be able to pick them off again but Cech insists a sound defence will be key. He said: "We are satisfied with the way we are playing. We have tried to improve in every game and get forward more. We have scored a lot of goals but it is always important not to concede."

"You never know what can happen. You can have bad luck, hit the post 10 times or the other keeper can have a great game."

That Grant has paid so much attention to Chelsea's attacking play is a compliment to Cech and his defenders.

Some have noticed a bit of the old Mourinho style in recent shut-outs but Grant insists people are only starting to see the beginnings of his Chelsea.

The first coaching course he took outside Israel, 30 years ago, was down the road from Gelsenkrichen and he is branching out again.

At the scene of Mourinho's greatest triumph, his Champions League victory with Porto against Monaco in 2004, the Israeli wants to emphasise the philosophical differences he has with his predecessor's approach.

Grant said: "Now I am back here as Chelsea manager and I would like to build something because every big club needs to have a style of its own.

"In every aspect we have improved, our defensive game is better but our attacking especially. We are more organised.

"It hasn't happened in a short time because when you want to build a team on attacking football, it is much more difficult than to build a team on defensive football.

"For me, it is only the beginning of the process. But you can give a big credit to everybody at Chelsea."