Nicolas Anelka interview: I was glad to win the title with Arsenal but I want to win my second with Chelsea

By Martin Lipton in Mirror Football Blog

Published 23:02 26/11/09

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Nicolas Anelka returns to Arsenal on Sunday finally believing his 10-year title itch is set to be scratched.

Anelka was a teenage prodigy breaking into Arsene Wenger’s Highbury ranks when his first season in England ended in Double glory in 1998.

Since he left the Gunners the following summer, Anelka has completed a European tour that brought him back to London in 2008 without ever tasting the pleasure of winning a major league championship.

But after netting his third European goal of the season in Portugal on Wednesday, Anelka is convinced Chelsea will show this weekend that they are champions in waiting and allow him to remember just what it feels like to be crowned the best.

Anelka said: “I’ve had to wait a long time for that second title in England but that is life.

“I was glad to win it with Arsenal. Now I am glad to be at Chelsea. We have a big team with big players and I hope I will do it again.

“You have to appreciate the good times. Sometimes you have only one chance in your life to win the title.

“I had the chance before and now I have a second chance to win it.  This is a big club with big players. I hope I have the chance again.

“Of course I will be happy to win a title with Chelsea, despite what I have done with Arsenal and Real Madrid.

“I know I am playing for one of the biggest teams in the world. I won it first 11 years ago and when you first play football you want to win everything, even if you have success.”

Anelka’s fellow Gunners in 1998 included Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit, Dennis Bergkamp and the famous Arsenal back line.

Now his colleagues are equally stellar, his partnership with Didier Drogba having already realised 18 goals this season, while Frank Lampard, set to play after a quick recovery from his thigh tear, Michael Essien and Michael Ballack represent arguably an even more formidable midfield than Arsenal had.

Title success would make Anelka join former Blackburn and Manchester United defender Henning Berg in the elite group of Premier League winners with two different clubs.

But while Anelka was reluctant to draw too many comparisons with his former side, he insisted that he goes back to Arsenal now a very different and far better player than he was under Wenger’s early tutelage.

Anelka added: “We were strong with Arsenal and I believe we are strong again with Chelsea. If I compare the two teams, I think we can do it. I am sure of that.

“But I know I have grown as a player. When you play games and you’re older you know better what you have to do on the pitch.

“I’ve changed my game a little bit. I used to be a real striker, just staying up front.

“Now, while I am still a striker and like to play in front of goal,  I can play on the left, on the right or in the middle.

“I’ve changed my game and I’ve changed my mentality. I do feel I am a more mature person as well. At the time I was with Arsenal, I was 18, 19, 20 years old.

“Now I’m 30 so I am now one of the senior players, not the young boy I was then.

 “I feel better in the team, more comfortable. I’ve got used to the system and I’ve also got used to the club.

“Last season it was all new for me and now I’m jolly glad to be here and happy to play football and enjoy the football I am playing. So I feel I can score more goals for Ancelotti.”

One against his old club would really count, with Chelsea able to put a potentially unbridgeable 11-point gap between the two sides, effectively turning the race for the crown into a showdown with Manchester United even at this early stage.

“Porto was a difficult game and one we had to win,” said Anelka. “It was important to finish in first place in the group but we have done that and I think everybody is happy.

“It means we will go to Arsenal on Sunday full of confidence. When you play away from home in Europe, against a big team, and you win 1-0 it’s good for the team and good because we know we have a big game this weekend.

“If we win the gap will be big but I wouldn’t say too big. Everything is possible in football, even if you are a lot of points in front or behind a club.

“We’ll try to win and then we’ll focus on all the games after that. Every game is important.”