"Chelsea? They will find it difficult coming north to get points.
"Without doubt, Chelsea are the new force. Yet their form is not much different from last season.
"If you look at the last few seasons, Chelsea have always been up there at this time.
"It is when they come up north, you will see. They have got to go to Liverpool and Everton.
"It's different after New Year, different pressures, you see. I always think the league starts on New Year's Day.
"I think Chelsea have done fantastically but there's the European Cup, the FA Cup starts, the semi-finals of the League Cup - it's a new ball game.
"Even though Arsenal went through last season undefeated, they had a lot of draws, scrappy draws, and that was down to the fact of their determination not to lose the unbeaten record.
"But unbeaten records don't bother me ... what I think about is how we can win the league.
"That usually narrows down to how many defeats you have and your form in the second half of the season."
You look at it, and in the history of the Premier division we make fewer mistakes in the second part of the season than the first. There's no doubt about that.
"When it matters, we make fewer mistakes. We have had bad starts after World Cups and European Championships.
"But with Ferdinand and Rooney getting fitter, what we are seeing now is form and, in terms of performance, it is championship form."