• Chelsea manager says he will not be judged on result
• Frank Lampard and John Terry set to return to team

André Villas-Boas claimed his Chelsea bosses really would have lost the plot if he ended up being judged on the outcome of Sunday’s Premier League clash at Manchester United.

Villas-Boas insisted nothing would be decided by this weekend’s showdown at Old Trafford in terms of the title race and also played down the significance of his first touchline confrontation with Sir Alex Ferguson.

Sunday’s game arguably represents the biggest challenge of Villas-Boas’ fledgling managerial career. The 33-year-old has been at the top of his profession for barely two years and will be squaring off against a man who will celebrate 25 years in charge of United in less than two months. That will not prevent Villas-Boas coming under fire if Chelsea are beaten on Sunday but the Portuguese prodigy branded any resultant pressure from above as unjustified.

“Any manager who is judged after five games of a season, there’s not something wrong with the manager but something wrong with the people who run clubs,” said Villas-Boas, who is all too aware Roman Abramovich is not the most patient of owners.

Defeat would mean Chelsea slip five points behind United, with a victory putting them a point clear. Yet Villas-Boas, who looked as relaxed today at his pre-match press conference as at any point since taking charge of the Blues this summer, said: “Anything that comes out of this game won’t mean anything. It might play to the motivation to the team who wins, or both if we draw, but let’s wait and see.”

United have flown out of the blocks this season, breaking Chelsea’s record-breaking start by notching 18 goals in four straight Premier League wins.

“It’s for all of us to praise when a team starts the way they have,” said Villas-Boas, whose Stamford Bridge career has begun in a decidedly more low-key fashion. “We have made a good, strong start in the Premier League. This game comes at a good time for us. Both teams feel very motivated and strong, so hopefully this will be enough for the spectacle to be excellent, which all of us should hope for.

“When there is this high expectancy for a game, sometimes things go the other way and it’s boring and tactical. But that’s not the culture of the Premier League. It will be a high-intensity game fuelled by emotion.”

Those emotions can spill over to the touchline but Villas-Boas was keen to play down the impact he or Ferguson would have on Sunday’s proceedings.

“I don’t think it can be reduced to two managers taking on each other,” he said. “Our importance in the game is minimal. It’s for the players to exploit their talents and enjoy their game.”

Villas-Boas had only just turned nine when Ferguson took charge at Old Trafford and did not become aware of the 69-year-old’s exploits until much later.

“I don’t even remember how old I was when he took charge,” Villas-Boas said. “I was in love with my Porto and didn’t have enough football knowledge to extend myself. My love for the Premier League started when it started casting itself wider a bit more.”

Villas-Boas admitted he never could have imagined he would end up pitting his wits against one of the great managers, someone whose achievements he is on course to emulate if he continues collecting silverware at the rate he did at Porto.

But the Premier League is a whole new ball game and his first top-flight defeat in 17 months is a very real prospect on Sunday.

“There’s the prospect I might lose any game,” shrugged Villas-Boas, who looks certain to recall captain John Terry and vice-captain Frank Lampard this weekend.

The toughest decision he faces is, of course, whether to keep faith with the misfiring Fernando Torres or recall Nicolas Anelka.

“Let’s wait and see,” Villas-Boas said. “I will not help you with your obsession with my striker.”

He added: “My worst day is the day I have to make selections and I have to pick my team first, then the 18. When everybody is so good, you can almost become sentimental, but it takes a bit of my heart out.”

André Villas-BoasChelseaManchester Unitedguardian.co.uk

• ‘We have to improve, and we will’, says Chelsea manager
• Portuguese believes six clubs are in contention for the title

André Villas-Boas says he is not concerned by the flying start to the season made by Manchester City and Manchester United in which each club has harvested a maximum nine points and scored 25 goals between them to head the Premier League table.

Villas-Boas’s Chelsea side, who travel to Sunderland on Saturday, are fourth on seven points, having drawn at Stoke City on the opening day. They have scored only five goals. But the Portuguese manager pointed to international breaks disrupting the beginning of the campaign, and said the closing of the transfer window will allow more focus at the club. Sir Alex Ferguson this week admitted that he expects Chelsea to be a “big threat” this season and challenge for the title.

Asked about City’s 12 goals and United’s 13 Villas-Boas said: “Good for them. They’ve scored a lot of goals and that’s good for British football. We just hope to score one more than the opponents. We’re two [points] behind them. We want to get nearer. Our objective is shortening this distance and I think we can be better and we have to transform [the performance] better. In a team perfection is very hard to obtain. We won’t do it this season or next but we want to improve on a weekly basis and that’s what people expect from us.

“We are happy that we are creating enough chances to win and that’s what we must focus on. We have to improve quality and fluency – that comes by playing more games and more often, not the weekly break we have had [due to internationals]. And, now [there can be] a change in focus and concentration with the market closed. This did not distract the players but it absorbs things that should be related to football business.”

Regarding United’s 8-2 win over Arsenal at Old Trafford last month he said: “This is not a common result, it doesn’t happen a lot. Manchester United played to perfection.”

Villas-Boas believes there may be up to six clubs who can win the title. “There are five teams challenging, United, City, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal [and] I wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave Tottenham [Hotspur, who are bottom] out. It’s not impossible they can join the group and challenge. You never know what might happen.”

Despite missing out on signing Luka Modric, the Croatian playmaker, from Tottenham Villas-Boas is content with his business in the summer transfer window. Juan Mata, Raul Meireles, Romelu Lukaku, Thibaut Courtois, Oriol Romeu and Ulises Dávila all joined. “We have the people we wanted to include in the sectors we wanted,” the Portuguese said. “Overall the squad is extremely competitive.”

Villas-Boas did admit that the 18-year-old Lukaku, who cost £18m, is a “gamble”. He added: “Lukaku is based on an opportunity in the market – a good grab. We couldn’t allow ourselves to lose that talent at that price so we took the gamble.”

ChelseaAndré Villas-BoasPremier League 2011-12Jamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk

• Manager says he must get players believing in his methods
• Reiterates desire for side to adopt more attacking style

André Villas-Boas has stressed he will only succeed as Chelsea manager if he gets the squad to believe in his coaching methods so they will “die” for the cause.

The 33-year-old’s staggering success at Porto last season – the Portuguese club won the domestic title, cup and the Europa League – was built largely on his devotion to preparation and attention to detail. Villas-Boas will adopt the same approach at Stamford Bridge, in contrast to the more relaxed reign of his predecessor, Carlo Ancelotti.

“It’s not the case that managers who approach the game in the other way are not successful,” Villas-Boas told Chelsea magazine. “You can be successful in the game in various different ways. The most important thing is that the idea you want to sell, the players are able to buy it; that it doesn’t seem something so out of the ordinary that they are not able to commit and die for you and for the cause.”

Villas-Boas also reiterated his desire to bring a more attacking style of play to Chelsea. Porto scored a remarkable 145 goals in 58 games last term, a statistic he believes stemmed from his ability to “free players of decision-making”.

“It’s not just a case of the manager arriving, changing things and that’s why they score,” he said. “You free them from the limitations that they might have in a different kind of system but, in the end, you make them believe in their qualities and this is the most important thing. For you to exploit the potential of every player to the full, you have to give them a certain amount of freedom, or else they will never test it.

“So we encourage them to make better decisions, give them freedom of choice a lot. Once you go towards finding that talent, you can end up with players transcending themselves and doing things they thought they could never do.”

Asked if his time working as an opposition scout for Chelsea between 2004 and 2007 would help him, Villas-Boas said: “I think it always makes things easier. You know where the people you need are and you know the skills they have. Of course, the club hasn’t stopped in time from when I left, it has evolved a lot in various ways. But to have the kind of empathy that I have with the people around is decisive.

“I was part of that group dynamic when we were here before with José [Mourinho]. Fortunately, they were good times for the club – we won trophies – and that’s the kind of motivation I want to raise within our group.

“It’s a big challenge, of course. We are speaking about one of the biggest clubs in the world. Everybody knows the expectations of the Chelsea supporters. I think we are on for a great season. Coming here is not just a question of big, radical changes. I’m confident that we have enough people with the quality here to go forward.”

ChelseaAndré Villas-BoasKaty Murrellsguardian.co.uk