Sunderland 1 Chelsea 2: Villas-Boas focuses on Abramovich’s obsession ‘to play well’

The Blues entertain German side Bayer Leverkusen at Stamford Bridge tomorrow in their opening group stage game, and will head into it having enjoyed an unbeaten start to the new campaign.

Villas-Boas’s predecessors have failed to lift the trophy coveted by owner Roman Abramovich and paid with their jobs, but he insists that does not increase the weight on his shoulders.

He said: “I just have to focus on what the owner has told me. One of his obsessions is to play well, and that’s what we try to do.

“Of course, we have to add the trophies to the playing well situation, and that’s our main focus as a top team, there’s nothing new in that.

“If you take the European trophy, of course it is a dream to everybody, but it’s the most difficult trophy to win when you see the level of the other European teams as they are and it’s going to be a massive challenge again.

“We just have to go step by step on it. We have two days to rest only before the Leverkusen game with Bayer having one day extra to rest, and we have to focus on getting the first three points before going to Valencia.”

Chelsea will head into European battle in confident mood after a commanding display at the Stadium of Light.

Debutant Nicklas Bendtner might have got Sunderland off to the perfect start when he met Sebastian Larsson’s free-kick with a glancing header, but he saw the ball drop agonisingly wide with goalkeeper Petr Cech beaten.

However, as the visitors eased into top gear, it was they who looked the more likely to open the scoring, and they duly did with 18 minutes gone after Juan Mata’s free-kick came back off a post. The ball was eventually fed out to John Terry beyond the far post and although his initial shot was blocked, Phil Bardsley could only help his follow-up into the roof of the net.

Chelsea dominated the remainder of the first half, but had to wait until six minutes into the second to increase their lead. Raul Meireles’s ball over the top put Daniel Sturridge in on goal and as goalkeeper Simon Mignolet advanced, he back-heeled an audacious shot past him and into the bottom corner despite Wes Brown’s desperate efforts to keep it out.

Sunderland learned before the game that Ghana international Asamoah Gyan was to join United Arab Emirates side Al-Ain on a season-long loan deal.

Manager Steve Bruce was scathing in his response after believing the air had been cleared during talks on Thursday.

He said: “I don’t want anybody to hang around the place when they don’t want to. It’s been ongoing now for weeks and months. But it sums it up – for somebody to go and leave the Premier League to play in the United Arab Emirates, I can let everyone draw their own conclusions from that.

“Connor (Wickham) and Ji (Dong-won), it’s time for them now. I wanted to try to ease them in if I could because they are both so young.

“They will have to come in quicker than I thought they would do, it’s as simple as that.”