John Terry makes no apology for 'remorseless' Chelsea

John Terry claims the the "remorseless" Chelsea machine is back – but this time he will make no apologies for it.

Terry leads the table-topping Blues across the capital to the Emirates tomorrow knowing victory will put a huge dent in Arsenal's title ambitions.

The England and Blues skipper is increasingly confident that Carlo Ancelotti has recreated the unstoppable momentum that propelled Jose Mourinho's team to two years of dominance.

But while Mourinho's win-at-all-costs mentality sometimes made his players almost apologetic about the way they played, Terry vowed last night that this time Chelsea realise they have nothing to be ashamed of.

Terry said: "Looking back, we got a bit of stick for being remorseless and grinding out results under Mourinho but now I feel we did exactly what we had to do.

“I think at times we've showed people that we can really open teams up, that we can score goals as well as grinding out a result.

“If you look at the Porto game in midweek, we probably didn't play to our potential.

“But at the same time, while we didn't have too many chances we took the one we did create and then held on and stayed solid.

“I think we're looking back to what we were good at but now I think the best is still to come.

“With the momentum and the way we’re playing, the confidence and everything, I can only see it going in one direction - and that’s forward and working better finding the solutions to where we've gone wrong before.”

Terry has been the mainstay of a defence breached in just one game out of the last eight, a further statistical reminder of the Mourinho era.

And the skipper added: “I think we are looking solid and compact.

“Big Petr Cech made a couple of good saves in Portugal but overall I think we are defending well.

“I want to stress that the whole team plays a big part in that, not just us at the back.

“The last few games have been brilliant but we really need to keep going. We've got some big games coming up and of course  Arsenal is one of them.

“But we've faced some really good sides, Porto home and away, clean sheets, Liverpool, Manchester United, all clean sheets, some great sides and we've defended against them well and  kept some top quality strikers out.

“What’s good for us is that,if our front men are getting marked by two or three people, our midfielders can go on and score goals.

“Nicolas Anelka was awesome last season and has started off brilliantly again and he and Didier Drogba have struck up a great partnership up front, with Nico coming off and running in behind.

“At times it might leave Didier a bit isolated up front but he’s so strong that we have the option of playing it up to him, knowing he will hold it up and allow the midfield to get forward in support.

“That’s why people like Michael Essien, who does a lot of ground work and John Obi Mikel, who soaks up a lot of the play are so important.”

Arguably none of those midfielders are as important as the one poised to make a return ahead of schedule: Frank Lampard, who was expected to be out for three weeks when he returned early from England's trip to Doha with a thigh tear.

“Frank’s going to play a massive part for us,” agreed Terry. “He’s been fighting for the last 10 days or so to try and get fit for the game.

“We know that it’s a big game at the start of a really big period and we have to make sure that we’re on our toes.

“I certainly like to think we are playing with confidence at the minute, so there's no reason why we should go anywhere and fear anyone. But at the same time, we respect Arsenal.

“We all sat and watched their game against Standard Liege. They put a young side out and they still managed to put in a really good performance and their young players seem to do it year after year.

“So we know it’s still going to be a tough game but it could be a big win if we could do it."