Sports

Goalkeeper Petr Cech acknowledged mistakes on the pitch are not helping Andre Villas-Boas or his Chelsea players.

Their defending for Ezequiel Lavezzi's double in Napoli's 3-1 win in Italy on Tuesday night was far from impressive.

And Cech said: "We know he (Villas-Boas) keeps working hard for us.

"He prepares every game with 100% commitment and we appreciate it as players.

"But if you have players on the pitch making mistakes he can't help it."

The Czech Republic international continued on Sky Sports: "I think it was an amazing game for the supporters to watch, there were a lot of counter-attacks, shots and chances.

"But if you come to a place where they are strong at scoring and leave them so many moments you can get punished.

"We went 1-0 up and had a spell where we controlled the game but they got a goal just before half-time that made a difference because they could sit back and wait for the counter-attack.

"We tried to score and it became dangerous for us as they looked for a third goal."

Cech continued: "When everything goes wrong you have a rebound like we did for the third goal. The bounce went in the perfect place for them.

"We always say we keep working hard on the training ground but unfortunately we don't seem to transport that that on the pitch.

"We have quality players who can turn it around but it could be better because we don't have time to recover. We have a lot of games coming up and we are not in a position to drop many points in league.

"It's not an ideal situation but we are still in the Champions League and we will fight to the end."

Juan Mata put Chelsea 1-0 up before Lavezzi's double and an Edinson Cavani goal turned things around, making for a testing return at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues' scorer said: "One-nil would have been an excellent result for us but we didn't keep it.

"Napoli are a very strong team in this stadium but now we have the second game and we are going to put in 100% at the Bridge.

"I knew it would be an open game because Napoli are offensive with three players, Cavani, Lavezzi and (Marek) Hamsik who are very fast on the counter-attack.

"But today we had a lot of chances to score and we will have to convert those chances at the Bridge.

"I have confidence in this team, we are not dead. It will not be easy for us but I think we can do it."