Nemanja Matic has revealed that Chelsea's heavy defeat to London rivals Arsenal last month served as a wake-up call for the playing group.

The Blues were easily beaten 3-0 by the Gunners at the Emirates Stadium which came just over a week after their 2-1 loss at home to Liverpool.

However, Chelsea have put those results behind them with three straight Premier League victories without conceding and culminating in Sunday's 4-0 hammering of Manchester United.

"You know sometimes you need to lose the game to wake up," said Matic.

"The Arsenal game was a wake-up call for us. We knew that we had to do better, to want more, and we did that.

"It's easy to say we needed to work harder but after Arsenal we knew we had to show that we had quality, and we have done that in the last three games.

"We have showed quality, we don't concede, and we score goals."

The Serbian midfielder added: "This was a moment to show we can compete with every team.

"I'm very happy because of that. Of course we don't forget that we lost against Arsenal, against Liverpool. But of course the table shows that we are there, we are near.

"We will try and continue like this. I think at the moment we are playing very good. It's not easy to win 4-0 against a strong team like Manchester is. We won a big game."