Marcos Alonso insists Chelsea must ignore Premier League title gap ahead of Manchester City showdown
The Spaniard admits the Blues have not been ‘loyal’ to their style of football in recent matches and must improve
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Your support makes all the difference.Marcos Alonso has urged Chelsea to forget about the growing gap to Manchester City, with the Blues' Premier League title hopes hanging by a thread.
Wednesday's shock 2-1 defeat against Wolves at Molineux left Maurizio Sarri's side 10 points behind the Premier League leaders ahead of Saturday's showdown with Pep Guardiola's side at Stamford Bridge.
Suffer a third loss of the season and the Blues, who now sit fourth, will trail City by 13 points but Alonso is eager to ignore the table.
“It's too early to talk about it, obviously,” Alonso said. “If we lose we are going to be 13 points from the top and that's a lot of points but we have to think, prepare for the game well and not pay attention to the table at the moment.
“It's the perfect opportunity to come back. It will be a great game for sure, everyone will be very motivated to play. We are very disappointed after the defeat but it's back to work and we will work harder and start playing better as a team.”
Raul Jimenez and Diogo Jota scored in four second-half minutes at Molineux to cancel out Ruben Loftus-Cheek's deflected opener.
It was Chelsea's second straight away league defeat after a 3-1 loss at Tottenham last month ended their unbeaten start.
“We have to play more as a team,” Alonso added. “It's something we have to analyse, we will try our best to improve as soon as possible. We're not doing very well at the moment. More individually [than] as a team, we have to get better as a collective.
“We had the chances to win, we were controlling the game and started the second half having a couple of chances.
“The last few games we were not loyal to our style of play and, even if we didn't deserve it, we lose. We are going through a hard moment and you have to work very hard, stay together and get back to winning as soon as possible.”
Victory lifted Wolves up to 12th ahead of Sunday's trip to Newcastle and boss Nuno Espirito Santo praised the impact of Morgan Gibbs-White after the 18-year-old produced a dazzling display on his full Premier League debut.
“He is getting in the game and bringing energy, staying focused and humble,” Santo said. “He has a lot to improve and a lot to give to us and us to him. Together we are going to try to build something.
“He is [in] one of the best generations of English players for a long time.”
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