Andre Villas-Boas insists he has no concerns over his future despite seeing Chelsea suffer a 3-1 defeat against Napoli in the Champions League.
Chelsea boss expects to still be in charge for Napoli return
Andre Villas-Boas insists he has no concerns over his future despite seeing Chelsea suffer a 3-1 defeat against Napoli in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League last-16 tie.
The Blues boss was already under pressure having seen his side slip out of the top four in the Premier League in the wake of a four-game winless run before Saturday's 1-1 draw at home to Championship outfit Birmingham in the FA Cup.
A series of blunders handed Napoli the advantage ahead of the second leg at Stamford Bridge, with Juan Mata's opener for the visitors cancelled out by Ezequiel Lavezzi's brace and an improvised finish on the stroke of half-time by the outstanding Edinson Cavani.
Raul Meireles was at fault for Napoli's first goal, while Branislav Ivanovic was caught out for the second before David Luiz added to his personal bloopers show-reel in the second half.
Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has earned a reputation for dispensing with managers who do not provide immediate success, but when questioned if he expected to still be at the helm for the second leg at Stamford Bride on March 14, Villas-Boas told
Sky Sports: "Yes, for sure.
"I have the full confidence of the owner with the message I have from him all the time."
Villas-Boas raised eyebrows by leaving experienced trio Frank Lampard, Michael Essien and Ashley Cole on the bench, but was in no mood to discuss his decisions in the aftermath of the defeat.
Punished
He said: "It is a team selection. I can go on and explain it but it makes no difference to you guys, you will just have to analyse it and make your opinion. It was based on who was there for the team at that moment and was the best team in my thoughts."
Villas-Boas pointed to a crucial miss from Luiz when he headed over with the goal at his mercy shortly after Mata's opener and also admitted the Brazilian should have done better when he failed to deal with Hugo Campagnaro's long-ball, allowing Cavani to set up Lavezzi for the third.
He added: "After the first goal we had a big chance to go 2-0 up, there were some big missed opportunities, and then we should have done better with our defending.
"There were a couple of mistakes that against Napoli with their attacking strength will get punished. I think that the third goal was perfectly avoidable.
"If we take a one-goal advantage at home it is better. 3-1 is more difficult to recover, not impossible of course, because of the amount of chances that we get and the environment we must create at the Bridge to turn this tie around to get through.
"The first 90 minutes have passed, we have 90 minutes in which we have to turn tie around. We will analyse strongly what we did wrong because there are a couple of things we need to do better.
"We will create problems with our attacking options, because we created problems today."
