• Midfielder Mikel missed seven weeks with a calf injury
• Villas-Boas targets Champions League and FA Cup success

Chelsea received a boost on Tuesday ahead of their Premier League game at Everton when Mikel John Obi returned to full training after seven weeks on the sidelines.

The Nigeria international has been out since injuring a hamstring in the 1-1 draw at Tottenham Hotspur in December, but was back with the rest of the squad ahead of the trip to Goodison Park on Saturday.

His fellow midfielder Frank Lampard is

• ‘It’s like we lost’ says new signing after 3-0 lead given up
• Owner Roman Abramovich addressed players after the game

André Villas-Boas must lift a Chelsea dressing room that, according to the new signing Gary Cahill, was “flat” and sickened after they surrendered a 3-0 lead to draw 3-3 with Manchester United at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

The manager is under pressure to win silverware as he manages a transitional period for the squad and he was paid a training ground visit by the owner Roman Abramovich on Saturday, during which the pair spoke for 20 minutes. Abramovich also addressed the players after the United game.

Abramovich’s focus has been on his high court litigation battle with Boris Berezovsky – he is being sued for more than $5bn by his former business associate; Abramovich’s fortune is put at $13.4bn. But the hearing ended on 19

• Spaniard praises André Villas-Boas after three straight wins
• 23-year-old happy at the club he joined in summer

Juan Mata says that the Chelsea dressing room has always been “united” behind the manager, André Villas-Boas, and the midfielder believes that the club is back in the Premier League title race, after Monday’s morale-boosting 2-1 home win over Manchester City.

Villas-Boas has cut an embattled figure in recent weeks, as he has seethed under the weight of criticism and been forced to contend with talk of disharmony in the ranks. The Portuguese has constructed something of a siege mentality and, after the decisive 3-0 Champions League victory over Valencia at Stamford Bridge last Tuesday, he claimed to have given the club’s critics a “slap in the face”.

The triumph over City, when the team recovered from the concession of an early goal to snatch the points through Frank Lampard’s late penalty, showed the character in the squad and, according to Mata, reinforced the point that everybody was with Villas-Boas.

“The team has shown in the worst moments that we are united behind the manager,” Mata said. “Now that we are in a run of results where things are more positive, everything is easier, but we have