• Premier League

Villas-Boas coy on Mata reports

Andre Villas-Boas praised the attitude of his Chelsea players after they came from behind to defeat West Bromwich Albion 2-1 at Stamford Bridge.

Nicolas Anelka and substitute Florent Malouda got the goals for the home side, which proved enough to overcome Shane Long's early effort for the visitors. After initially appearing frustrated with his side's workrate during the game, Villas-Boas had praise for them all at the conclusion.

"It is just the players' talent that makes the difference. Their mental attitude for the second half was good,'' Villas-Boas said. "There was a sense of realising the space and better options without being anxious like they were in the first half. It goes down to them.

"It was a difficult game. The first goal was very early and the crowd became anxious and that passed onto the pitch.

"We weren't able to play to our level. We had to remove the anxiety and be mentally tranquil.The players were able to free themselves from that and work at their best.''

Chelsea are said to be closing in on Valencia's attacking midfielder Juan Mata, but Villas-Boas said: "I don't know anything about that."

West Brom boss Roy Hodgson said there were plenty of positives his team could take from the match, but admitted he was disappointed to lose the match after Shane Long had given his side the lead in the opening minutes.

"Certainly there are a lot of positive things from last week's game and this week's game,'' he said. "But it was disappointing to lose. For 60 minutes we did quite well.

"On another day we could have come away with a result. We got in behind them on plenty of occasions and could have scored more than the one goal we got."

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