Chelsea-Sunderland Preview

Aug 16, 2009 - 3:20 PM DANIEL ROSE STATS European Football Writer=

LONDON (SE) - Didier Drogba aims to continue Carlo Ancelotti's winning start as Chelsea manager at Sunderland on Tuesday after claiming it is better to be lucky than good.

Drogba ensured Ancelotti's Stamford Bridge reign got off to the perfect start with a fluky last minute winner to beat Hull 2-1 on Saturday when his attempted cross deceived Tigers' goalkeeper Boaz Myhill and sailed into the top corner.

Ivory Coast star Drogba believes that fortuitous strike proves the luck is with Chelsea this season.

Drogba said: "I was not trying to score. It was a cross, but luckily for us it went in.

"Sometimes to succeed you need to be a bit lucky and I think Manchester United had that in the last three years.

"In some games they did not play well but because they have this winning mentality, which was maybe better than us in some games, the created this little bit of luck.

"It is really important to get back to the mentality of winners. We need to be 100 per cent motivated to achieve something.

"We need to get back to winning games regularly, even easy games where we think we are going to win and we draw.

"It is really important to be ready. We are still focused on wining the league and performing well."

Sunderland striker Darren Bent is out to put Ancelotti's side to the sword after making a scoring start to his Black Cats career.

Bent took just five minutes to open his Sunderland account during Saturday's 1-0 victory over Bolton at the Reebok Stadium.

Bent, a 10 million pounds summer buy from Tottenham, said: "As a striker it is always nice to get your first goal out of the way and hopefully that will be the first of many.

"It is great to get off to a winning start and we will be high in confidence going into the Chelsea game.

"They are a great team but if we believe in ourselves like we did on Saturday we are more than capable of getting a positive result."

Bent's Sunderland teammate Anton Ferdinand also expects big things from the England striker this season.

The former Charlton and Ipswich star endured a nightmare time at Tottenham after falling out of favour with manager Harry Redknapp.

Defender Ferdinand said: "All the lads are delighted for Darren. You know if he gets a chance to score he will probably put it away.

"He is at a club where he wants to be, playing regular football and that is how you get the best out of him."

Ferdinand claims work rate could be the key to undoing Chelsea in manager Steve Bruce's first home Premier League games in charge.

"Saturday was a great start to the season, which was thoroughly deserved after the way the lads worked," he added.

"That is always an important quality, especially when you are talking about playing a side with Chelsea's quality."