Chelsea Midfielder Nemanja Matic 'Surprised' by Liverpool's Poor Start to Season

Chelsea midfielder Nemanja Matic has admitted his "surprise" by Liverpool's poor start to the campaign ahead of his team's trip to Anfield on Saturday 8 November.

After their latest defeat against Newcastle, the Merseysiders are sitting seventh in the Premier League table, 12 points behind Jose Mourinho's side, with only four victories from the first 10 games.

Meanwhile, the Blues have had an impressive start to the campaign, leading the table after eight victories and just two draws, against Manchester City and Manchester United.

"I am surprised of course that they are so far behind us. They have a good team and I didn't expect them to be in this position," Matic said, according to Standard Sport.

The midfielder is aware about the difficulties to win at Anfield but after the Blues secured victory at Merseyside last season, he hopes to replicate the result on Saturday.

"We went there to win last season and we won 2-0, we did a good job. It's not easy to win in Liverpool 2-0, but we showed our quality," he said.

"Of course nobody is happy when they lose a game and they were not very happy. But now is a different story. We play in a different way.

"Many teams park the bus against us this season, but we win. It's not easy - you have to know how to defend. We are ready, we are first in the table and want to stay there."

Matic is confident Chelsea can secure three points at Liverpool to put the Champions League 1-1 draw against Maribor behind them.

Even though the midfielder scored his second Champions League goal of the season, the Blues were unable to get the three points needed to secure the qualification for the last 16.

Despite manager Jose Mourinho claiming some players were not focused enough after beating the Slovenian side 6-0 in their previous game, Matic said the players were aware of the challenge.

He said: "Maybe everybody else expected an easy game but we didn't. We knew before the game that Maribor can play very well, and they drew with Sporting at home and with Schalke away.

"They showed before that they can play good football and the manager prepared us some videos before the game to show us where Maribor could be dangerous.

"Of course we are not happy with the draw. We know that we did not play very well but we are first in the group and before the game we had two more points than Schalke and now we have three. I am sure we will use our quality in the last two games and we will stay in the first position."