Andre Villas-Boas: Chelsea manager admits defeat by Liverpool was a 'big blow' to his side
Andre Villas-Boas admitted Chelsea's 2-1 home defeat at the hands of Liverpool was a major blow to their Premier League title hopes.
The Blues are now 12 points adrift of runaway leaders Manchester City and have already suffered four defeats in their opening 12 fixtures of the season.
Glen Johnson's late strike saw the Reds seal victory and condemned the home side to their first back-to-back defeats in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge since May 2002, after they were humbled 5-3 by Arsenal in their last outing.
Sky Bet have slashed the odds on Villas-Boas being the first Premier League manager to go from 33/1 to 8/1 following Sunday's reverse and the Blues have drifted out to 12/1 for the league title.
Difficult situation
The Portuguese tactician told Sky Sports: "It would have been a very important win on a weekend where most of the top teams won.
"It's a bad blow for us in the Premiership. It's a big blow. In terms of the Premiership, things are difficult. "
Andre Villas-Boas Quotes of the week
"It's a bad blow for us in the Premiership. It's a big blow. In terms of the Premiership, things are difficult.
"We have a home game with Wolves next, before Newcastle and then the leaders and we have to try and win those games, as difficult as they are.
"There are lots of points on offer in November and December. The calendar gets tight and maybe we can get some extra points.
"But this is one step closer to an even more difficult situation."
Liverpool took the lead after another defensive blunder from Petr Cech and John Obi Mikel allowed Charlie Adam to steal possession and set up Craig Bellamy, who played a one-two with Luis Suarez before finding Maxi Rodriguez to slot home.
Mistakes
Daniel Sturridge was brought on at the interval for Mikel and levelled 10 minutes later, but having seen his side gift Arsenal and now Liverpool easy goals, Villas-Boas was not impressed.
He added: "We need to get it right in terms of organisation. We looked much better in the second half, but we needed to win it in the 90 minutes.
"These players have been aware that when you build up from the back there can be these situations. Mistakes can happen and they happened again. We conceded a sloppy goal.
"We have players of immense talent and we trust these players to take us through to win the four competitions.
"Most of them have won major honours in their career. They are experienced players and they are the ones we chose to attack the four competitions."
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