•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   
•    EYEWITNESS   

Naples, Italy. Chelsea will be playing for more than just simple qualification when it travels to Napoli in the Champions League second round, first leg today.

It’s a tie that could have far wider reaching consequences for both its manager, Andre Villas-Boas, and English football as a whole.

Villas-Boas, for many people’s money, is living on borrowed time in the Stamford Bridge hot seat.

Rumors of dressing room dissent and some unsatisfactory results have made his position appear precarious.

Chelsea faces a fight to finish in the top four in the English Premier League, battling alongside Arsenal and Newcastle for that crucial fourth spot, and therefore qualification for next season’s premier European club competition.

It came close to bowing out of the FA Cup at home to Championship side Birmingham City over the weekend before snatching a 1-1 draw.

Villas-Boas admits he doesn’t know if he will still have a job if Chelsea fails to beat the Italians.

“It’s not up to me to decide that. You have to ask that question to the right person,” he said, meaning owner Roman Abramovich.

But the Portuguese manager says his side is lacking in faith due to its recent poor results.

“The situation is we don’t have enough good results for us to feel a bit strong,” he said. “But we are still in these competitions and will continue to push for them. It will be a difficult game against Napoli but we have shown in the group games we can overcome adversity.”

Chelsea went into its final group game at home to Bayer Leverkusen knowing that if it didn’t win it risked crashing out. The club won 2-0 and topped the group but now there is the added pressure that it is realistically England’s last representative.

The dominant teams in this season’s Premier League, Manchester rivals United and City, both crashed out in the group stages while Arsenal’s 4-0 thrashing at AC Milan last week even had its manager, Arsene Wenger, admitting that the Gunners had no chance of progressing.

With Chelsea’s recent troubles and Napoli’s return to form (it has won its last two games following a sticky period marked by numerous draws) the Italians’ coach, Walter Mazzarri, is feeling confident.

“Right now maybe Chelsea [is] worse than us but I don’t believe that,” he said. “At this level you come up against teams full of great players who are used to certain situations.

“I’m sure they’ll regroup for the occasion. But in any case it always depends on the unique moment. You also need the good fortune to be playing them in their worst [moment].”

For its part, Napoli has the good fortune of itself being in the ascendancy.

“Right now all the incidents are going well, whereas before everything went badly,” Mazzarri said.

The Napoli coach will be forced to watch from the stands having been sent off in the last group game against Villarreal.

He may also be without center-back Hugo Campagnaro while Chelsea has its own defensive worries, with captain John Terry rated as doubtful and left-back Ashley Cole facing a race to be fit.

Napoli won 3-0 at Fiorentina on Friday.

Agence France-Presse