Andre Villas-Boas faces D-day over John Terry

Posted Monday, October 31, 2011 by The Sun

Andre Villas-Boas faces D-day over John Terry
STRAIN GAME ... Blues skipper Terry

ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS must decide whether to pull John Terry out of the firing line this week.

But the Chelsea boss seems likely to stick with his under-siege skipper for tomorrow's Champions League trip to Genk.

Villas-Boas knows he can probably afford to leave Terry out against the Belgian minnows, who were buried 5-0 at the Bridge two weeks ago.

But he also knows that would raise more questions about the frame of mind of a player feeling the strain of a police and FA investigation after being accused of racially abusing QPR's Anton Ferdinand.

Terry was taunted by Arsenal supporters throughout Chelsea's shock 5-3 home defeat on Saturday.

However, Villas-Boas insists the England captain has not been distracted by the allegations and continues to support his man.

But Chelsea are not short of central defensive options, with Branislav Ivanovic, David Luiz and Alex all available.

Villas-Boas said: "We are always confident with any team we put out to win a game.

"Any 11 selected from 18 in the squad will be good. The Champions League is a different scenario to the Premiership and this is a good opportunity for us. We will put ourselves in a very good position to qualify if we win this."

Chelsea will be assured of their place in the knock-out stages if they win in Genk and Valencia fail to beat Leverkusen at home.

One worry they have, though, is they have not kept a Premier League clean sheet since the first day of the season.

And Ivanovic admits they need to get their act together at the back. He said: "We are playing more attacking football than last year and a lot of other small things are contributing to this, but it's up to us to adapt. We need to keep more clean sheets.

"So, yes, we need to improve defensively, I think we can do better."