Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois has claimed that his side's upturn in fortunes is down to a collective fear of failure following last season's disastrous title defence.

The Blues are top of the Premier League pile after winning 12 games on the spin, which is in complete contrast to 12 months ago when they were languishing in the bottom half of the division.

Courtois admits that his side were not in the right state of mind for their back-to-back games with Liverpool and Arsenal in September - defeats which would ultimately kickstart this club-record run of form due to Antonio Conte's decision to revert formation.

"We knew that maybe our mentality was not right in those two games we lost against Liverpool and Arsenal," he told the Daily Star. "They were tough games and we didn't have the same intensity as Arsenal or Liverpool. If you don't put the same intensity in as the other side, you will not win that kind of game.

"So that's why we talked as a team about making a step up at that point, because we didn't want to have the same season as last year. We needed to step up and that's what we did. Obviously with the current run of wins of course we would say we are doing maybe better than expected after a bad season last year.

"We are top of the league with more points than we had after this many games when we were champions two years ago. So that says we are doing well, but we have to keep on working hard and fighting a lot against the teams who defend more and are hard to break down. We will try to do our best and keep the run going."

Chelsea, now just two wins away from setting a Premier League record for successive games won, face Stoke City and Tottenham Hotspur over the New Year period.