Andre Villas-Boas makes referee complaint following Manchester United defeat

Villas-Boas felt the performance of the referees was poor (GETTY IMAGES)

Andre Villas-Boas today revealed he had complained to referees' chief Mike Riley about the performance of the officials in Chelsea's Barclays Premier League defeat at Manchester United.

Villas-Boas was still smarting this afternoon by the manner of what was his first loss in charge of the Blues and his first defeat in a league game for 17 months.

Chelsea fell 2-0 behind at Old Trafford on Sunday to goals which replays showed should not have stood as both scorers had been offside, with United eventually running out 3-1 winners.

Villas-Boas said today: "Very, very unhappy with a poor performance from the referees, which in the end had a decisive role in the result, and I don't take it very, very lightly.

"You expect the linesman to do his job.

"I already went further ahead with the situation by speaking to the correct people.

"We all feel very, very down when the referee had such an impact on the result."

Chelsea were also let down by their own wastefulness in front of goal, with Fernando Torres producing one of the worst misses in Premier League history.

Villas-Boas refused to comment on his £50million striker's state of mind this afternoon, saying: "It's not a question about an individual player.

"I'm very, very happy with how the team responded.

"Everybody is strong and with the correct frame of mind."

However, the Chelsea boss all but confirmed Torres would have to wait for the chance to redeem himself, revealing he planned to flood his team with youngsters for tomorrow night's Carling Cup third-round tie with Fulham.

"It gives us a very good idea of where we stand regarding the young players that we are trying to bring through," said Villas-Boas, who announced Josh McEachran, Romelu Lukaku, Oriol Romeu and Ryan Bertrand would all start tomorrow, with Didier Drogba leading the line after being sidelined for more than three weeks with a sickening head injury.