AVB: We gave critics ´a slap in the face´

Chelsea boss Andre Villas-Boas felt his team defied their critics as they beat Valencia 3-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday.

The Blues have struggled to keep clean sheets this season, but have improved recently keeping three in their previous four Premier League games.

And Villas-Boas was keen to point out this fact and his side’s improvement after Didier Drogba’s brace fired them to the top of Group E.

“To be fair, in the Premier League games we have kept three clean sheets in four games so our defence is not that bad,” Villas-Boas told Sky Sports.

“We have been improving a lot. There has been a lot of criticism of our players and I think they gave everyone a slap in the face today.”

“It really doesn’t matter what they (the critics) say about me, it matters that Chelsea finishes top of the group and manages to obtain the objectives that we set out to get.”

“We managed to qualify in first position and we wait for the draw to see how far we can go in the competition.”

The Portuguese boss also expressed his delight for his playing group and admitted Drogba’s third-minute goal was a huge boost to his side.

“In terms of the result, I’m very happy for the players,” he said.

“They worked very hard for this win. We managed to get a result that made us proud at half-time, and guess what, we have finished top of the group against all odds.”

“It was good to score straight away. Valencia started a bit uncomfortably, they lost possession a couple of times. We were available for transitions after that and we scored from one of them.”

“Our strategy was always to keep our line of defence near to our goal, and we managed to get a fantastic result and finish top of our group.”

Chelsea’s next test will be at Manchester City in the Premier League on Monday.