Luiz Felipe Scolari, however, has given Chelsea licence to attack and that has paid dividends as the team have charged to the top of table with 19 goals from eight League games.
Three of those have come from Kalou, who said: "You can just see by the number of goals we have scored this season how much we have improved.
"Last term, Manchester United's goal difference was so much better than ours and it was like another point to them.
"It put us under even more pressure. We knew we couldn't just draw level with them, we had to overtake them and in the end that was what made the difference.
"Now we are the ones who have the best goal difference and we aim to keep it that way."