Villas-Boas backs Mourinho to succeed at Chelsea once again

Andre Villas-Boas has backed Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho to build another winning team at Stamford Bridge.

Villas-Boas faces Mourinho for the first time as Tottenham Hotspur manager after leaving the Portuguese’s coaching staff at Inter Milan and pursuing his own career in management.

The 35-year-old’s Spurs side are aiming to secure a top-four finish after Villas-Boas’s disappointing stint as Blues boss lasted less than nine months.

Mourinho has returned to the Stamford Bridge helm but results have been mixed as Chelsea made the worst start to a Premier League campaign in over a decade before beating Fulham last weekend.

But Villas-Boas reckons his former mentor will fine-tune his Blues squad and soon lead the west London side back to glory.

“This Chelsea team is still being built around Jose’s ideas,” said Villas-Boas.

“It’s changed dramatically since he left… A couple of the players are still the same.

“They have so many creative players and so much technical flair. It’s not so much the same players we recognise with Jose from 2004 to 2007.

“They’re still bonding together as a team. With all Jose’s abilities, he will be able to fine-tune to another winning team because he has done that most of his career.”

Naturally, most of the pre-match focus is on Chelsea’s Mourinho and Spurs boss Villas-Boas despite the fixture also being one of London’s traditional big derbies.

And the Tottenham boss was keen to stress his rivalry with Mourinho is very much a sub-plot to the main event at White Hart Lane on Saturday.

“In the end we try to serve the players as much as we can. The game is theirs,” he said.

“The history of both clubs surpasses our achievements.

“So I would say we should be, in my opinion, second figures to a spectacular game that means a lot to the fans and much more to the players.”