Cech - AVB not to blame

Petr Cech: Players to blame rather than Andre Villas-Boas for Chelsea's problems

Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech insists the players and not under-fire manager Andre Villas-Boas are to blame for the club's current slump in form.

The Blues lost their third game in their last five outings after dramatically going down 2-1 to Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday night.

Villas-Boas has seen his position come under scrutiny as a result of the poor form with Chelsea facing a nervy final group game showdown with Valencia next month to determine if they will progress to the knockout stages of Europe's premier competition.

Cech has jumped to the defence of Villas-Boas and claims the players must shoulder the blame for their dramatic slump.

"The manager is not on the pitch, we are on the pitch and we are making mistakes," Cech told the club's official website.

"He cannot do anything about individual mistakes while he is standing by the bench. So the players are to blame and we know it and we try to make things happen and change. It is not easy but we keep going."

Concentration

Chelsea's problems at the back were again in evidence against Leverkusen as they conceded two late goals and Cech knows they need to cut out the mistakes if they are to get back to winning ways.

"We can't really wonder how we lost because we didn't kill the game off and we repeated the same mistakes," added Cech.

"We have been talking recently about the same mistakes - concentration and little details when we don't go to clear the ball. I think we need to be much more aggressive in terms of defending and we get punished all the time."

Cech has come in for criticism for Leverkusen's last-gasp winner from Manuel Friedrich, but the Czech Republic shot-stopper insists there was nothing he could do to stop the goal.

"It [the header] was too good. I tried to reach it but I couldn't and that was the reason why the goal went in," concluded Cech.