LONDON: Having claimed the season’s first major trophy, Chelsea will attempt to tighten their stranglehold on the Premier League title race when they visit West Ham United in mid-week.

Chelsea beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 at Wembley on Sunday to lift the League Cup and they were given double cause for celebration by Manchester City’s 2-1 defeat at Liverpool earlier in the day.

Chelsea now lead second-place City by five points with a game in hand, leaving manager Jose Mourinho well placed to repeat the feat from his first season at the club, 10 years ago, when his side followed up success in the League Cup by romping to the title by a 12-point margin.

“It’s given us a taste of where we want to be at the end of the season, lifting more trophies obviously,” Mourinho said. “This is our first one collectively, and looking back in 2004-05 it definitely had that effect on the squad.”

West Ham away is one of the hardest games left on Chelsea’s schedule and the leaders will be without defensive midfielder Nemanja Matic, who will be serving the second game of a two-match ban.

City will try to get their title hopes back on track when they host last-place Leicester City with the defeat at Anfield leaving them open to being caught by Manchester United and resurgent pair Arsenal and Liverpool behind them.

Third-placed Arsenal are four points off City with 11 games left, with United a point further back in fourth and Liverpool another two points back in fifth with the fight for third and fourth place looking set to go to the wire this season.

Fixtures (1945 GMT unless otherwise stated):

Tuesday: Aston Villa v West Bromwich Albion, Hull City v Sunderland, Southampton v Crystal Palace.

Wednesday: Liverpool v Burnley (2000 GMT), Manchester City v Leicester City, Newcastle United v Manchester United, Queens Park Rangers v Arsenal, Stoke City v Everton, Tottenham Hotspur v Swansea City, West Ham United v Chelsea.

Published in Dawn March 3rd , 2015

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