Villas-Boas keeps his eyes on the prize

Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Sunderland will not last long in Andre Villas-Boas’ memory, as he looks ahead to the Champions League opener.

Villas-Boas’ predecessor Carlo Ancelotti was sacked over a failure to bring home the coveted European Cup for owner Roman Abramovich, and the Portuguese boss admitted to keeping an eye on their opening match against Bayer Leverkusen.

“I just have to focus on what the owner has told me. One of his obsessions is to play well, and that’s what we try to do,” he said after Chelsea’s triumph at the Stadium of Light.

“Of course, we have to add the trophies to the playing well situation, and that’s our main focus as a top team, there’s nothing new in that.”

“If you take the European trophy, of course it is a dream to everybody, but it’s the most difficult trophy to win when you see the level of the other European teams as they are and it’s going to be a massive challenge again.”

Villas-Boas did admit that the win over Sunderland was their best attempt at translating their training into a gameday situation.

“Fortunately, today we were able to play the passing game that relates more to how we train, and the team played very, very well. I am very happy with the display,” he said.

“The 2-1, of course, is avoidable and that brought an edge to the last three minutes, but we can only say that Chelsea deserved to win and we were very consistent in the first and second halves.”

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce said easy turnovers proved costly as Chelsea made the Wearside outfit pay on the break.

“They (Chelsea) were excellent in possession of the ball. We found it very difficult to get after them, which we did and we did valiantly to keep at it and stick at it, but when we got it we gave it away too cheaply,” he told Sky Sports.

Winless in their campaign thus far, the Black Cats manager admitted a victory was necessary, with Stoke, Norwich City and West Bromwich Albion fixtures on the horizon.

“We need to go and win a match and we need for everybody to settle down a bit,” Bruce said.

“We’ve made huge changes, I believe we’ll be okay, I certainly believe we’ll stick with it that’s for certain.”