Mikel Hopes For Chelsea Response

Nigerian midfielder, John Obi Mikel has spoken of the frustration after Chelsea were held to a goalless draw by West Ham United in a Barclays English Premier League game at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

The Blues dominated the game for long spells but were unable to make the decisive breakthrough, bringing an end to their seven-match winning streak.

A win, by a two-goal margin, would have seen Chelsea move up to second place on the Premier League standings and Mikel spoke of his sadness at the result.

'Coming into the game we knew how they were going to approach it,' Mikel told the club's official website, www.

chelseafc.
com.
West Ham United threw lots of bodies behind the ball in the stalemate at the Bridge but Mikel says he was not surprised by the tactics adopted by the Hammers.

'We knew they were going to make it difficult and they had almost 11 men behind the ball all the time, from the first half until the end of the game.

'It was very difficult and frustrating, we tried to find spaces between the lines and behind the defenders but it was tough.

'From their point of view they should be happy with what they achieved.

They set out to defend and that's exactly what they did.

I don't know what the statistics were in terms of possession but they didn't come to play, they just came to sit back.

'We knew we had a chance to go above Arsenal if we'd won so it was a very frustrating night for us,' he said.

Mikel and his Chelsea teammates will now set their sights on a positive result against Manchester City in their next league game on Monday and believes the Blues 'can get a result' at the Etihad Stadium.

'It's a setback (result against West Ham United) but it's one we don't need to kill ourselves over.

We'll go back into training, we have Man City next and hopefully we can go there, put in a good performance and get a result.

'It's a big game; we'll approach it like we approach every match.

We go into every game to win and it won't be any different against Man City.

'They're on a good run, they're playing well and around this time the games come thick and fast,' he said.

REUTERS