All to play four! AVB plays up Tottenham’s showdown at Chelsea

Andre Villas-Boas admits that Tottenham will have to be at their best to have any chance of beating Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Spurs head into the clash knowing that victory will hoist them up into fourth place in the Premier League table and level on points with the Blues with two games left to play.

A win for Chelsea, however, would all but secure the west Londoners’ place in next season’s Champions League and Villas-Boas needs no reminding of the magnitude of Wednesday’s showdown.

“The pressure is on everybody, and all the clubs will regret letting Manchester City escape,” Villas-Boas told a news conference. “We’re not far from our objective but we have to be extremely good at Stamford Bridge.

“It’s very open because of the remaining fixtures. If Chelsea win they are in it and it means one less spot available and couldn’t depend purely on ourselves.

“Our drive is to set out to win the game and depend on ourselves. The only way we can do that is to win.”

Villas-Boas, who spent eight turbulent months in charge of Chelsea before being sacked in March of last year, insists that his first return to the Stamford Bridge dugout will “not be very special”.

“It’s not very, very special,” he continued. “It’s a club that I have gone past.

“I have good and bad memories like everybody else, but it’s a pity it didn’t finish as I would have liked.

“Before I was manager there I was in Jose’s team and I had some wonderful years there.

“Probably the ones I’ve spent there as manager are not that special, so in that sense it doesn’t have that kind of effect on me.”