Chelsea says it wants to hire Villas-Boas as coach

By foxsports
Published

Andre Villas-Boas is set to become Chelsea's seventh manager in eight years after resigning as coach of Porto on Tuesday ahead of talks with the Premier League club.

Chelsea confirmed its interest in the 33-year-old coach after a reported ?15 million ($21.5 million) exit fee was paid to release Villas-Boas from his contract at the Portuguese champions.

''We ... hope to reach agreement with him on personal terms and make a further announcement in the near future,'' Chelsea said in a statement.

Porto president Jorge Pinto da Costa said he wasn't surprised by Villas-Boas' departure, particularly after the coach made a recent trip to London.

''When (Villas-Boas) went to spend a weekend in London a month or so ago, I spoke to (assistant coach Vitor Pereira) and asked him if he would be ready to take over. He told me he was and I was relieved,'' Pinto da Costa told a news conference at the club's Stadium of the Dragon.

''Last Friday, I warned him it was about to happen. What has happened is part of life and of football. We accept it.''

Pereira will succeed Villas-Boas, a man often compared to both clubs' former manager Jose Mourinho, on a two-year contract.

Media in England and Portugal has widely reported that Villas-Boas is poised to join Chelsea on a three-year contract. He would be the youngest current manager in the Premier League.

Chelsea has been without a manager since Carlo Ancelotti was fired minutes after the team's final match of last season, and had been heavily linked with current Turkey coach Guus Hiddink.

Villas-Boas is a former assistant of Mourinho at Chelsea and is regularly compared to the current Real Madrid coach. He has been dubbed by many as the ''Mini-Mourinho.''

Those comparisons were reinforced last month when Villas-Boas emulated his mentor by winning the Europa League, the second-tier European competition which Mourinho won with Porto in 2003 in its UEFA Cup format.

Villas-Boas became the youngest coach to win a UEFA club competition when Porto's unbeaten season ended with a 1-0 victory in Dublin over Portuguese rival Braga.

When Mourinho moved from Porto to Chelsea in 2004, he won back-to-back Premier League titles but failed to land the Champions League - the trophy Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich craves the most.

Villas-Boas was a scout for Mourinho at Chelsea and followed him in 2008 to Inter Milan. A fluent English speaker, he was just a teenager when he started working with Bobby Robson during the former England manager's spell at Porto. At 21, Villas-Boas coached the British Virgin Isles.

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Barry Hatton in Lisbon contributed to this report.