Cech: Blame players, not coach

Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech has given under-fire Blues manager Andre Villas-Boas his backing, insisting ‘the players are to blame’.

With just two wins in their last seven matches in all competitions, the Portuguese coach has had to withstand the pressure that comes with a difficult patch of form at Stamford Bridge.

Chelsea’s latest loss, a 2-1 defeat to Bayern Leverkusen in Group E of the Champions League on Wednesday, only increased the scrutiny on former Porto boss Villas-Boas.

Cech, however, believes there is only so much his manager can be responsible for.

“The manager is not on the pitch, we are on the pitch and we are making mistakes,” Cech told the English Premier League club’s official website.

“He cannot do anything about individual mistakes while he is standing by the bench. So the players are to blame and we know it – and we try to make things happen and change.”

“It is not easy but we keep going.”

Having taken the lead through Didier Drogba’s 48th-minute strike only to return to England with nothing after Manuel Freidrich’s stoppage-time winner for Leverkusen, Cech was refusing to lay the blame anywhere but the feet of the players.

“There are no excuses,” he said. “We need to look first at ourselves and then we can criticise the other people because we put ourselves in the situation where we were 1-0 up and we could have killed the game off.”

“Then there would be no discussion whatsoever about things that were happening in the game. We have to take it like that and make sure that this is the last time it happens.”

Chelsea remain on track to qualify for the knockout stages but must get a result in the final group game against Valencia, on December 6.

“We have put ourselves in a difficult situation because we could have had qualification done a month ago but that is the way it is. We play at home and it is up to us to deal with the situation,” Cech said.

“We are one of the top teams in Europe and this is not a situation we want to be in. The reaction of the players is that we can show on the pitch that we really mean what we say.”