Napoli Overpower Chelsea 3-1 After Villas-Boas' Poor Decision To Bench Cole, Essien, Lampard

Chelsea was blown away by the sheer brute force of Italian giants Napoli. The fact of Terry's injury and André Villas-Boas' decision to not include star players like Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole Michael Essien, Fernando Torres in the starting eleven certainly did not help matters.

As things stand then, Villas-Boas may not be around to see Chelsea's next leg clash against Napoli because of their disappointing 3-1 loss against the Italian giants in this leg of the competition.

Chelsea, with Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz, Bosingwa in defense, started disastrously with Cech having to make two difficult saves in the opening 10 minutes of the match.

However, against the run of play, Spanish midfielder Juan Mata managed to put the visitors in the lead, when, on 27 minutes, he picked a poor clearance by defender Paolo Cannavaro. Villas-Boas could be seen taking a sigh of relief on the side lines as Chelsea continued attacking through Drogba and Sturridge.

It seemed to get better for the Blues; they missed a huge chance in the 36th minute, when David Luiz, after managing to beat De Sanctis, headed the ball over the cross-bar, following a Mata corner.

Before Chelsea could recover from this crucial miss, Napoli launched an immediate counter-attack and Argentinean star Ezequiel Lavezzi, after muscling past Raul Meireles, found the net with an impressive shot.

After the equalizer, Napoli was so overjoyed that Uruguayan striker Cavani was booked for over-celebrating and Argentinean defender Campagnaro's head wound (which he received earlier in the match) started bleeding, due to his over-excitement.

Although Chelsea managed a few shots on goal, Napoli was now dominating and managed to score again, in the dying minutes of the first half, through Cavani, who managed to strike from close range after collecting a Gokhan Inler cross.

The final icing on the cake was delivered by Lavezzi again... in the 68<sup>th minute... when he managed to put the ball past Cech from a Cavani pass.

Chelsea, already struggling, could have been completely destroyed in the 81<sup>st minute. Napoli's Slovak Midfielder Hamsik, after taking out Cech, crossed the ball dangerously to Italian wing back Maggio, who managed to fire his shot straight at Ashley Cole.