Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has admitted that his side are all but out of the Premier League title race.<\/p>\n
Following the 1-1 draw with Fulham at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day, the Blues lie fourth in the table, 11 points behind both Manchester City and Manchester United.<\/p>\n
Villas-Boas said: “With City and United continuing to get the points they are getting, it’ll be difficult.<\/p>\n
“Maybe the Premier League is over for us at the moment.”<\/p>\n
Juan Mata gave Chelsea the lead in the west London derby, only for Clint Dempsey to earn the Cottagers a point.<\/p>\n
Former Porto boss Villas-Boas, who took charge of the Blues in June, continued: “There’s no big drama in terms of how we look at things. But you have to be sufficiently real.<\/p>\n
“That is the perspective we have to make at the moment. It’s difficult, but it’s not impossible. You cannot say that.<\/p>\n
“But we have to focus on our position at the moment and make a real assessment.<\/p>\n
“We’d targeted the December fixtures as an ideal situation to find out what would happen in the Premier League. We continue to do that.”<\/p>\n
Villas-Boas also dismissed talk he will have a budget of \u00a3140m to spend in the January and denied that he will be using the transfer window to overhaul his squad.<\/p>\n
“The story is not true,” said the Portuguese. “Whatever business we do, we will do it properly and quietly but we won’t do a lot and not with those amounts.<\/p>\n
Villas-Boas has already declared his interest in signing Bolton defender Gary Cahill to bolster his squad.<\/p>\n
Striker Nicolas Anelka has agreed to join Chinese side Shanghai Shenhua and transfer-listed Brazilian centre-half Alex is poised to leave the club, but the Chelsea boss insisted there will not be drastic changes at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
“That [\u00a3140m] is an outstanding amount of money but it makes no sense at all,” Villas-Boas added. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has admitted that his side are all but out of the Premier League title race. Following the 1-1 draw with Fulham at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day, the Blues lie fourth in the table, 11 points behind both Manchester City and Manchester United. Villas-Boas said: “With City and United continuing to get the points they are getting, it’ll be difficult<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n