Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has revealed he believes defeating Napoli in the UEFA Champions League round of 16 would give the Blues a boost of confidence for the remainder of the season.
The London side have not been in the best of forms recently and in their latest FA Cup fifth round clash against Birmingham City barely managed a draw. The 1-1 stalemate ensured them a replay for the fixture and spared them the embarrassment of losing to a Championship side.
Chelsea will be in action on Tuesday night when they travel to http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Napoli-c40003 for the first leg of the highly awaited fixture in the last-16 of the European competition. A failure to improve will definitely see the Blues suffer a big defeat at the hands of the Italian side and ultimately face elimination from the Champions League.
Despite the odds against his side, Andre Villas-Boas remained confident of his side’s chances of making it past Napoli and maybe even eventually going on to win the Champions League in a season that has proved to be highly uncertain for http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786.
Villas-Boas said in an interview:
“If you go past Napoli, then you can have a really good chance, depending on who you get in the draw - if you get a good draw.
It will be a massive challenge. Everyone saw what Napoli did in a group which put another English team out.”
The team that Napoli defeated to go through to the next round were current English Premier League leaders Manchester City, which makes the task at hand even more daunting for the Blues. However, the 34-year-old manager was confident a win or even a scoring draw would give his team the advantage for the second leg that would be held at Stamford Bridge.
He revealed:
“The Champions League is a competition that everyone wants to win. The players will feel much more tension and feel it much more.
There are two weeks between the games and it's important for us to be competent and to bring the game to Stamford Bridge with a win or a draw, ideally a scoring draw. Then we can finish the business here.”
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