Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas demands wins against West Brom & Norwich City to kick-start season
An injury to Petr Cech has left the Portuguese boss with a selection dilemma for Saturday's match, but he says Didier Drogba will sign a new deal with the club
Andre Villas-Boas has called on his Chelsea players to win consecutive home matches against West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City to give them a good start to the season.
The Portuguese knows that six points from both games is expected of his side after they drew 0-0 at Stoke City last weekend.
The first match against the Baggies sees assistant manager Roberto di Matteo come face-to-face with the club that sacked him as boss last year and Villas-Boas said the Italian had been receiving some ribbing as a result of the 6-0 defeat he suffered at Stamford Bridge.
But he went on to praise Roy Hodgson’s side, even though he is expecting his players to overcome them on Saturday.
“I think Robbie [di Matteo] is too depressed about the result last season to talk about it,” Villas-Boas jokingly told reporters.
“We just had some banter about it but he is now on this side and he just wants to win, like we all do.
“Of course it will be emotional for him seeing people he is close to. For sure he will salute those people.
“Last year was an excellent result and we have two games at home now and we must do everything in our power to get three points from each of them.
“A total of seven points can get us into a good position but West Brom, as we saw last week, presents a very difficult challenge because they held Manchester United, the Champions League finalists, up to the 80th minute.
“They had a couple of good chances and they favour good football, they play short and quick in between them which is something important for the spectacle, so it is a difficult game for us.
“They showed last week against Man United that Roy's values of football are being taken into account. That is why he took Fulham to the Europa League final.”
Chelsea will go into the match without David Luiz, who is still suffering from a thigh injury picked up at the Copa America.
And they will also have to make do without first-choice goalkeeper Petr Cech, who hurt his knee after falling awkwardly during training, and Villas-Boas declared that he had not decided yet who would replace the Czech.
“He fell awkwardly with weight on top of him, and he stretched a little bit a medial knee ligament,” he said.
“We expected much worse when we saw the incident. The good news is that it is just for three to four weeks.
“We have two goalkeepers, Hilario and Ross Turnbull, and tomorrow we will make a decision which one will start and which one will be on the bench.
“David Luiz can't make a return yet but it is nothing too dramatic.
“Next week he will be joining us because he already had a light session today and he will come back next week to full training, so it will be a step-by-step recovery for him.”
The 33-year-old also used his press conference to dismiss rumours that Didier Drogba would not sign a new contract and that Nicolas Anelka had handed in a transfer request after the signing of Romelu Lukaku from Anderlecht.
He added: “Drogba is one of the most important and representative players of the club and his willingness to continue is 100 per cent.
“It will be because of that that we will reach an agreement.”
And when queried about comments he made after the Stoke City match last week, Villas-Boas insisted what he said had been taken out of context.
“The reporting of my words was extremely unfair to what I said,” he added.
“I had a stance of saying the pushing and the shoving was in both boxes and that the referee needed help, and I was not complaining.
“Fortunately enough the Stoke manager is a sensible person and admitted what I said is completely different to how it was written.
“It is a physical game and it will happen in any box in the Premier League so we just have to deal with it.”
An injury to Petr Cech has left the Portuguese boss with a selection dilemma for Saturday's match, but he says Didier Drogba will sign a new deal with the club
Andre Villas-Boas has called on his Chelsea players to win consecutive home matches against West Bromwich Albion and Norwich City to give them a good start to the season.
The Portuguese knows that six points from both games is expected of his side after they drew 0-0 at Stoke City last weekend.
The first match against the Baggies sees assistant manager Roberto di Matteo come face-to-face with the club that sacked him as boss last year and Villas-Boas said the Italian had been receiving some ribbing as a result of the 6-0 defeat he suffered at Stamford Bridge.
But he went on to praise Roy Hodgson’s side, even though he is expecting his players to overcome them on Saturday.
“I think Robbie [di Matteo] is too depressed about the result last season to talk about it,” Villas-Boas jokingly told reporters.
“We just had some banter about it but he is now on this side and he just wants to win, like we all do.
“Of course it will be emotional for him seeing people he is close to. For sure he will salute those people.
“Last year was an excellent result and we have two games at home now and we must do everything in our power to get three points from each of them.
“A total of seven points can get us into a good position but West Brom, as we saw last week, presents a very difficult challenge because they held Manchester United, the Champions League finalists, up to the 80th minute.
“They had a couple of good chances and they favour good football, they play short and quick in between them which is something important for the spectacle, so it is a difficult game for us.
“They showed last week against Man United that Roy's values of football are being taken into account. That is why he took Fulham to the Europa League final.”
Chelsea will go into the match without David Luiz, who is still suffering from a thigh injury picked up at the Copa America.
And they will also have to make do without first-choice goalkeeper Petr Cech, who hurt his knee after falling awkwardly during training, and Villas-Boas declared that he had not decided yet who would replace the Czech.
“He fell awkwardly with weight on top of him, and he stretched a little bit a medial knee ligament,” he said.
“We expected much worse when we saw the incident. The good news is that it is just for three to four weeks.
“We have two goalkeepers, Hilario and Ross Turnbull, and tomorrow we will make a decision which one will start and which one will be on the bench.
“David Luiz can't make a return yet but it is nothing too dramatic.
“Next week he will be joining us because he already had a light session today and he will come back next week to full training, so it will be a step-by-step recovery for him.”
The 33-year-old also used his press conference to dismiss rumours that Didier Drogba would not sign a new contract and that Nicolas Anelka had handed in a transfer request after the signing of Romelu Lukaku from Anderlecht.
He added: “Drogba is one of the most important and representative players of the club and his willingness to continue is 100 per cent.
“It will be because of that that we will reach an agreement.”
And when queried about comments he made after the Stoke City match last week, Villas-Boas insisted what he said had been taken out of context.
“The reporting of my words was extremely unfair to what I said,” he added.
“I had a stance of saying the pushing and the shoving was in both boxes and that the referee needed help, and I was not complaining.
“Fortunately enough the Stoke manager is a sensible person and admitted what I said is completely different to how it was written.
“It is a physical game and it will happen in any box in the Premier League so we just have to deal with it.”
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