“Chelsea can still win the Premiership” – Rafa Benitez

After watching his team fail to score in two successive games and Fernando Torres stretch his barren run to 10 hours and 49 minutes, Chelsea’s interim manager, Rafa Benitez, insisted that they can still catch up with the Manchester clubs.

The Spanish coach, however, did not hide his disappointment after another dismal and uninspired performance.

“Everybody here is disappointed. We have to give credit to Fulham, who worked hard, but these are the games we have to win. We controlled the game but we still have to score goals,” he said.

The last time Chelsea failed to score in back to back home games, was in September 2007, under Avram Grant. But Benitez insisted they will soon be firing on all cylinders and catch up at the top.

“Why can’t we?’ he said. “It’s still a long way to go. We have to keep going. We’ll have chances.

“Remember last season when City were ahead and it was “easy”. Then they needed to win their last game. It’s a long, long competition.

“The main thing is to win games. If we do, we’ll be there and we can win competitions.

“We need to start doing that and the confidence will come back.’

On his compatriot, Torres, who has not scored in two months, Benitez said: “It wasn’t easy for him, or [Eden] Hazard or Oscar. We were on top of them [Fulham], regaining the game higher up the pitch, and might have won it in the last minute.”

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