Makelele ready to scrap

Chelsea midfielder Claude Makelele insists they are ready for more battles after stubborn Aston Villa ended a run of 11 consecutive victories at Stamford Bridge.

Villa preserved their own unbeaten start to the season thanks to an equaliser from Gabriel Agbonlahor after Didier Drogba was credited with opening the scoring with a scrappy goal for Chelsea after just three minutes.

Chelsea dominated the game but could not find the right opening to secure all three points and were frustrated further by a superb display from Danish goalkeeper Thomas Sorensen.

He kept the champions at bay with a string of fine saves and Chelsea’s misery was compounded when substitute Shaun Wright-Phillips hit the crossbar from close range late in the second half.

Coach Jose Mourinho maintained that his Villa counterpart Martin O’Neill had set out to get a point from the encounter and Makelele knows they will face more of the same from teams determined to get something from a visit to Stamford Bridge.

Makelele, who has now vowed to carry on playing at international level until the end of the Euro 2008 qualifiers, says they must accept life in both the Barclays Premiership and the Champions League will be harder this season.

Makelele said: “Chelsea need to keep winning and to work better in our new system and with our new players.

“I think we need every player. We need them all playing good football, winning and being happy. Winning comes first, then comes the quality and the good football.

“Every team wants to beat Chelsea. Every time Chelsea lose everybody is happy. It is more difficult on the pitch and more difficult outside.

“There’s a lot of pressure. But this can be good. It is good for us players to have pressure and to know it is not going to be easy. It helps us to fight for every single ball when we’re on the pitch.”

Mourinho backs Makelele’s view and adds that most, if not all, the teams in the Premiership possess better quality than last season.

The Portuguese coach added: “Every team is better – not just the top teams. The others are better as well. Every team fights for a result.

“Chelsea are, at this moment, not better but we are not worse. I think we have more potential, more solutions and the team is playing a different kind of football.

“We can change from game to game and we can change during the game. Some of the players are not up to maximum level but I think the team is playing very well. Against Aston Villa, in terms of the quality, it was our best.”

Chelsea’s £30m (€44.3m) striker Andriy Shevchenko once again failed to get on the scoresheet but Mourinho insists he is happy with his growing contribution to the team.

He added: “He played well against Villa and worked very hard. He is sharper and could beat people one-on-one and make runs from behind. The work rate when the team loses the ball was very good so I think this was his best game also.”

Villa boss O’Neill is delighted with his side’s growing confidence after their unbeaten beginning to the season.

Despite being under almost constant pressure Villa had chances in the second half, most notably a last-minute effort from Juan Pablo Angel, to win the game.

But the Villa boss was again impressed with young striker Agbonlahor, who was a constant threat to Chelsea with his pace and took his goal superbly by glancing a header beyond Petr Cech in the 45th minute.

O’Neill admitted: “I knew very little about him when I took over but he has been smashing. He has been a breath of fresh air – fantastic.

“He’s exciting and wants to get at people. He has got the goal and then he was back on the edge of our penalty area getting a tackle in. He has been great for us.

“But the whole team did well and we might have sneaked it when Angel had his effort at the end. It would have been hard on Chelsea had we done so considering the pressure we had been under.

“I thought for one glorious second he had squeezed it in but it wasn’t to be and we had a harrowing four minutes to survive after that.”