REACTION: CONTINUING TO GROW

Andre Villas-Boas admitted after the 1-0 win in Malaysia that his team lacked the efficiency in front of goal that would have given a scoreline more reflecting of the play, but he saw clear signs of progress with four pre-season games yet to play before the league season begins.

It took a rebound off a post and then off the keeper for an own-goal winner after a well-struck Didier Drogba free-kick late in the game, but the Blues dominated throughout against a young Malaysian select side, who were reduced to two genuine chances to score. Chelsea had more.

'We cannot forget the heat and the conditions, but it is clear that result in the end seems short because we had some good opportunities,' said Villas-Boas after the game.

'At the end we had a couple of good moments regarding what we are doing in training. Things are happening for us in terms of our objectives in transition and without the ball.

'Of course we could have scored more because we made a lot of opportunities which is a good sign for us, but the most important thing is that we continue to grow as a team leading up to the Stoke game.
'Also there was a major display by the Malaysian goalkeeper.'

The Portuguese manager was not able to comment on whether the ball had crossed the line, it was a tight decision by the linesman, but he declared he is not worrying over a lack of goals from his forward players at this stage of the summer, even if he recognises a need for improvement.

'Gaining confidence to find the back of the net comes with training and that comes with patience,' he said. 'At Chelsea we are prepared to give our forwards this kind of patience because the most important thing for us is to win collectively.

'I will just let things happen naturally. In Chelsea every player finds extreme competitiveness to be successful and the best players performing in training will go into the games and hopefully help the team to be successful.'

With the intensity of the training sessions that run for 90 minutes, often twice a day, and the heat in Asia, Villas-Boas continues to limit the players to 45 minutes match action at a time. He does not see any player given 90 minutes in the immediate future so performances from half-to-half are likely to vary.

'In the first half we played a lot horizontally from side to side and we could not find enough vertical passes forward,' he said of Thursday's game.

'In the second half we finally found more vertical passes, we changed the structure to 4-4-2 with a diamond by playing Nicolas Anelka behind Daniel Sturridge and Didier Drogba, and there was the space that we were looking to find. It is not his position but he has done it before in the past and we created another couple of chances.

'We are trying to build a new way of playing and things don't happen in three weeks. That is our target and that is our challenge and hopefully they will happen in the future.

'4-4-3 for us is a modern system and we are trying to link what we have with this system. It has been a lot of information for the players and the players are magnificent at absorbing so many new ideas in such a short period of time.'

Speaking of the future, Villas-Boas predicts a bright one for teenage centre-back Nathaniel Chalobah who contributed 45 minutes to the clean-sheet performance.

'Nathaniel is very young but already he is very impressive. At the moment he can build on to a very successful career but at 16 you never know what is going to happen when you are 25 or throughout your career. Hopefully things for him will work out.

'I think he has a place in Chelsea's future for sure because he has enough quality and he shows already enough maturity to be a great central defender.'

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