John Terry: "We are winning games that maybe we drew last season"

John Terry applauds the fans after the Capital One Cup Quarter-Final match between Derby County and Chelsea.

Chelsea head to Stoke tonight with a chance to move three points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League and John Terry believes that this season, the strength in depth we have in the squad is the difference.

As we all know, last season Chelsea threw away a ridiculous amount of points by either drawing or losing games. We all knew that we were a couple of players short of having the perfect balance in the side AND within our squad.

Now, we seem to have found the perfect balance and without question, the squad as a whole will all need to contribute if we are to challenge for the four competitions we are fighting for.

Speaking of the difference between this and last season, Terry said: 'They probably don't come any tougher than Stoke away. But we are doing well and it's important we go into games doing the dogged stuff, putting our bodies on the line.”

“The strength in depth of the squad (is the difference). This season we are winning games that maybe we drew last season,” he adds. “We speak among ourselves about regrouping and going again.”

Jose Mourinho spoke in his press conference about the importance of adapting his team to each and every team in the Premier League. If you look at tonight then we will have to adapt to Peter Crouch playing up front and Stoke's very physical style compared to Hull in our last game a week ago.

You cannot play the same way or defend the same way against Stoke as we did last week and this is where the importance of our strength in depth comes to the fore.

For example, Cesar Azpilicueta and Filipe Luis both started as our full backs against Hull but I can almost certainly confirm that they will not tonight because of Branislav Ivanovic and the physical presence he has. That will be more than important this evening.

Another area that is all important will be the wide areas in our attack. As we know, Willian and Eden Hazard seem to be the preferred starters in that area but for the game tonight, Andre Schurrle could be handed a start purely because of his physicality compared to the Brazilian.

The simple fact is that our season is very, very long and if we are to compete to win titles we will need everyone to contribute. According to JT, we HAVE the squad to do exactly that!