Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas has admitted that the vastly experienced duo of Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole both questioned his team selection for the Champions League game against Napoli.
The west London side travelled to Italy hoping to put on a better performance than fellow Premier League side Arsenal who had already been beaten 4-0 by AC Milan.
However, Villas-Boas made the decision to leave the two England internationals on the bench, before being forced to bring Cole on when Jose Bosingwa picked up an injury, while Lampard eventually replaced Florent Malouda after 70 minutes.
The Portuguese boss will have been grateful for the contribution of Cole whose goal line clearance stopped the result from being any worse as Chelsea face the challenge of turning round a 3-1 deficit at Stamford Bridge.
Strikes from Edinson Cavanni and two from Ezequiel Lavezzi came after Chelsea had made the perfect start when Juan Mata handed them an early lead.
Villas-Boas has now admitted that the pair were unhappy with his decision but says it is pointless to try and highlight this as the reason for the defeat.
"Whatever explanations I gave you would be fantastic if we'd won but are now useless given the result of the game, so there's no point," said Villas-Boas after the game, as reported by goal.com.
"We wanted two hard-working midfielders sitting in front of the defence. That's not to say that Lamps could not do it, for sure he could, but that was the decision we took.
"It was technical decisions. You can have your opinion but it was based on what was the best team in my thoughts.
"I had a conversation with Ashley and Frank. Normally, through the players that they are and the players with the experience they have, they felt they could have helped the team.
"That's perfectly understandable. Of course, they were disappointed but they were decisions they have to accept and move on."
Villas-Boas is seemingly under increasing pressure as it appears that the club will struggle to land any silverware, while they are also struggling to qualify for the Champions League.
