Villas-Boas never had stability at Chelsea

The 35-year-old lost his job at Stamford Bridge in February after only nine months at the helm and is due to face his former employer for the first time on Saturday (10.45pm AEDT).

The Blues suffered a 1-0 defeat at Loftus Road on October 23 - a match remembered for Anton Ferdinand's claim he was racially abused by John Terry - at a time when it had a chance to close in on the leader.

Now Villas-Boas is in charge at Spurs and, looking back on his ill-fated tenure at Chelsea, reckons that singular result led to his downfall.

He said: "When I look now to this exact date last season before we played the QPR game at Chelsea's positions (in the table), after the QPR match we had a consecutive run of bad results.

"In the end football results is about stability and jumping from adversity. At my time at Chelsea we never got that stability.

"After that game we went to Everton away (in the Carling Cup) and won and it was a massive win. Then we dropped points against Arsenal. It was those two Premier League fixtures in a row that took the belief from us being champions.

"We were always up and down and when Chelsea were with Robbie (Chelsea boss Roberto Di Matteo) it worked on the players' motivation and they went on a good run."

Villas-Boas has also drawn comparisons between the two fixtures in regards to what a victory would mean to his side.

"Last season by this time we (Chelsea) were going to QPR and if we won we would have been two points behind the leaders.

"It is exactly the same situation. This is the beginning for both teams. Both have to show stability for the rest of the Premier League season."