Chelsea defender Magdalena Eriksson believes last season's disappointing third place finish in the Women's Super League will motivate them to win the title this time around.

The Blues currently sit third again in the table, four points behind leaders Arsenal with a game in hand.

And although Eriksson admits she enjoyed the three-week break over the Christmas period, she insists now the team is back together they are fully focused on the second half of the campaign.

Speaking to the Chelsea website she said: "It was nice to have some time to chill and experience my home town Stockholm again. I celebrated an early Christmas with my family and then went to Denmark on the 23rd and celebrated actual Christmas there with my girlfriend's family.

"It was really relaxed and nice to get out of the football headspace and not have everything revolve around football. As soon as we got back to Cobham for training, it was like come on, let’s do this. Especially getting two new players in who look hungry and fresh to fight."

After an early draw with Brighton, Chelsea went on a brilliant run of six straight wins before labouring to a 1-1 draw against a struggling Liverpool team.

But while the dropped points before the winter break appeared to betray signs of fatigue, Eriksson is ultimately positive about her side's unbeaten WSL season so far.

"We had an early setback, the 1-1 draw to Brighton away, that was a bit of a wake-up call to us in the sense that we could not let this season be like last year," she said.

"We then had a really good spell of winning and were on an amazing run until the last game before the break which was frustrating. It was really tough conditions, we came from a week where we had three games and you could tell that we were tired.

"The two draws away to two teams we should have won against are the two disappointments I would say but the positives are definitely the three wins at home to the best three teams in the league – City, United and Arsenal, no one has beaten them all yet and we have which is a strong message to send out to the league.

"We are up there and we want to be the best in England and I feel when we play at our best, we are the best team in England."

Chelsea resume their WSL campaign this Sunday at 12:30pm when they host Reading.

And although the west London outfit have been careless in dropping points to sides who on paper they should beat, the Swedish defender is confident they will not take their eye off the ball.

"We are fully focused on the task of beating Reading," she said. "We totally respect them, we know every time we play them it is a tough game and they make it hard for us to play the way we want to play because they are aggressive.

"It’s going to be a really tough game, but it’s a good game for us to have because it keeps us on our toes.

"We won’t have the title in our own hands if we don’t win and that is something we aspire to, we have a game in hand at the moment and we just want to keep on winning."