Frank Lampard believes our exit from the Champions League could have been the turning point for our Double-winning season.
After Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge left the Blues without a place in Europe, many insisted the side would finish the campaign trophy-less.
But Lampard feels it was the ignition to our season's final few months, as we knuckled down in the business end of the campaign.
'Looking back at that moment, it is probably one of those negatives you turn into a positive,' explained Lampard.
'Maybe if we hadn't lost that game we wouldn't have gone on to win the League.
'And we set the bench mark doing it. We won the League and having not done it for three years now we want to go away, come back and do it again.'
With the Double achieved, there was another point Lampard was keen to make as he looked back on such a successful season.
Carlo Ancelotti's first foray into English football has produced phenomenal results, which are now for all to see in our trophy cabinet.
Any manager who produces such an historic outcome during his first season at a club will obviously be revered and respected in their profession.
But the Italian was overlooked for Manager of the Year, an accolade that instead fell to Harry Redknapp, another manager who moved to a new club but one who had years of experience in the Barclays Premier League.
Lampard feels the situation could have been different: 'People always say Chelsea is a great squad with great players and they expect us to do well.
'That's why the likes of Harry Redknapp win Manager of the Year because people don't quite expect them to do so well but you can't take anything away from Ancelotti what he has done.
'He's up there with the best of the year. He has come here, to a foreign country, he came virtually alone, with only one person from Italy and he has done all this.
'You have to hold your hands up and say it's a success and a job well done. No one can question what we've done this year.'
Now the challenge is for a Chelsea side, who will have seen many of our stars out on international duty during the World Cup, to return fully vitalised for the 2010/11 campaign.
'You want to embrace what you have done at the club and you want to start again,' said Lampard.
'The players have to come back energised, with the same mentality, want to win again, and that's what separates the great teams from the good teams.'
But for now Lampard and his England teammates are concentrating solely on the world's biggest competition in South Africa this summer. And after such a fantastic run-in with the Blues over the last couple of months, Lampard is ready for anything.
'I feel fresh, I feel confident and in the last few months, with the team I am playing with, I have been creating a lot of chances.
'I am seeing a lot of spaces at the moment and I am not scared to take things on, so let's just hope it carries on for the next month or so.
'The goals have been coming thick and fast and I feel very confident, so I will take that mindset into the World Cup.
'Then there's Ashley Cole, who has been out but he's back and firing, John Terry is John Terry, determined to play well, and hopefully Joe Cole's lack of minutes will be a good thing because he will be fresh.'
After Jose Mourinho's return to Stamford Bridge left the Blues without a place in Europe, many insisted the side would finish the campaign trophy-less.
But Lampard feels it was the ignition to our season's final few months, as we knuckled down in the business end of the campaign.
'Looking back at that moment, it is probably one of those negatives you turn into a positive,' explained Lampard.
'Maybe if we hadn't lost that game we wouldn't have gone on to win the League.
'And we set the bench mark doing it. We won the League and having not done it for three years now we want to go away, come back and do it again.'
With the Double achieved, there was another point Lampard was keen to make as he looked back on such a successful season.
Carlo Ancelotti's first foray into English football has produced phenomenal results, which are now for all to see in our trophy cabinet.
Any manager who produces such an historic outcome during his first season at a club will obviously be revered and respected in their profession.
But the Italian was overlooked for Manager of the Year, an accolade that instead fell to Harry Redknapp, another manager who moved to a new club but one who had years of experience in the Barclays Premier League.
Lampard feels the situation could have been different: 'People always say Chelsea is a great squad with great players and they expect us to do well.
'That's why the likes of Harry Redknapp win Manager of the Year because people don't quite expect them to do so well but you can't take anything away from Ancelotti what he has done.
'He's up there with the best of the year. He has come here, to a foreign country, he came virtually alone, with only one person from Italy and he has done all this.
'You have to hold your hands up and say it's a success and a job well done. No one can question what we've done this year.'
Now the challenge is for a Chelsea side, who will have seen many of our stars out on international duty during the World Cup, to return fully vitalised for the 2010/11 campaign.
'You want to embrace what you have done at the club and you want to start again,' said Lampard.
'The players have to come back energised, with the same mentality, want to win again, and that's what separates the great teams from the good teams.'
But for now Lampard and his England teammates are concentrating solely on the world's biggest competition in South Africa this summer. And after such a fantastic run-in with the Blues over the last couple of months, Lampard is ready for anything.
'I feel fresh, I feel confident and in the last few months, with the team I am playing with, I have been creating a lot of chances.
'I am seeing a lot of spaces at the moment and I am not scared to take things on, so let's just hope it carries on for the next month or so.
'The goals have been coming thick and fast and I feel very confident, so I will take that mindset into the World Cup.
'Then there's Ashley Cole, who has been out but he's back and firing, John Terry is John Terry, determined to play well, and hopefully Joe Cole's lack of minutes will be a good thing because he will be fresh.'
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