Chelsea’s Champions League hopes hang by a thread after they were comprehensively beaten 3-1 by Napoli in the first leg of their last 16 tie in Naples.
The English visitors were handed a blow ahead of the game as John Terry was unavailable for selection due to injury, but took the lead just before the half hour mark when Juan Mata struck.
However, the hosts equalised just before half time, with Ezequiel Lavezzi levelling things up. Napoli scored twice more in the second period, with Edinson Cavani giving the San Paolo side the lead before Lavezzi grabbed his second and his team’s third.
Blues boss Andre Villas Boas believes that his side could have defended better, but feels that The Blues are not out of the tie.
“After the first goal we had a big chance to go 2-0 up, there were some big missed opportunities, and then we should have done better with our defending,” he confessed to Sky Sports.
“There were a couple of mistakes that against Napoli with their attacking strength will get punished. I think that the third goal was perfectly avoidable.
“If we take a one-goal advantage at home it is better. 3-1 is more difficult to recover, not impossible of course, because of the amount of chances that we get and the environment we must create at the Bridge to turn this tie around to get through.
“The first 90 minutes have passed, we have 90 minutes in which we have to turn tie around. We will analyse strongly what we did wrong because there are a couple of things we need to do better.
“We will create problems with our attacking options, because we created problems today,” he concluded.
The defeat makes it six games in all competitions without a win for the Stamford Bridge team.
By Gareth McKnight
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