Villas-Boas: Abramovich "quit on me"

Published Jul. 12, 2012 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

New Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas feels Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich "quit on me" after deciding to call a premature end to their Stamford Bridge project last season.

The 34-year-old was sacked just eight months into his former post in March, when the Blues were outside the top four of the Barclays Premier League.

However, under the guidance of then interim coach Roberto di Matteo, Chelsea went on to win both the FA Cup and also become kings of Europe following a dramatic penalty shoot-out win over Bayern Munich.

Villas-Boas was lured from Porto, where he had won the Europa League, after Chelsea met his release clause of 15 million Euros (£13.3million).

The Portuguese coach would not go into specifics, but maintains he was let down by the Blues billionaire Russian owner.

"I respect the decision of the owner of Chelsea, but I will never accept it," Villas-Boas said as he held his first media conference at Tottenham's new multi-million training complex in Enfield.

"I told him that for me it was him quitting on me when he had been so much involved in the beginning in bringing me in and he was the one also who was not putting up to the things he promised."

The Spurs boss continued: "It is all very well that you cut the project short and Chelsea go on to win two trophies and you say how wonderful the squad was, but at the beginning nobody believed in that squad when we put it together.

"It was a tremendous learning experience which I am grateful in some ways to have gone through it because it makes me a better coach and a better person at this time.

"But the decision to cut it short was not mine and for Chelsea to have won the Champions League and to have won the FA Cup was because we were still in those competitions.

"I had the opportunity to win them cut short and I had cut short the opportunity to qualify for the Champions League when I was just three points off the fourth position, this is what I recall from the day when I was sacked."

Villas-Boas insists he has taken much on board from his short spell in charge of Chelsea, during which there were some disagreements with senior players over tactics and direction.

"I am not a guy who is able to criticise anyone in public, but I am not a guy who promotes individuals in public," he said.

"I understand now that certain things can be done better and in the end you evolve in different ways.

"Hopefully I can apply the different things I have learned properly."

Despite his difficult spell at Chelsea, there were no shortage of offers for the former Porto coach.

However, Villas-Boas admits making an immediate return to "what is arguably the best league in the world" with Spurs was "an obvious temptation".

Spurs decided to go in a new direction after sacking Harry Redknapp at the end of a campaign which had promised so much but which ultimately failed to deliver Champions League football.

"Hopefully I can build on from what Harry left me with, pushing towards even more ambition," said Villas-Boas, who has penned a three-year deal at White Hart Lane.