Sport: Chelsea will not sell Drogba and Anelka in January – Andre Villas-Boas

Andre Villas-Boas says he will not sell Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka in January and would rather risk losing them for nothing.

Drogba, 33, Anelka, 32, fellow striker Salomon Kalou, 26, and full-back Jose Bosingwa, 29, are in the final year of their Chelsea contracts. But AVB insists he is under no pressure from owner Roman Abramovich to cash in on the £60million quartet while he still can.

He says he has no doubts about their commitment even though they will soon be free to open negotiations with rival clubs.

Arsenal sold Samir Nasri for £24m rather than let him run down his contract.

But Villas-Boas said: “We won’t need to sell these players. Apart from Anelka, we have offered them contracts and talks are on-going, “Even if we get to January with no agreements, their loyalty will not be questioned. We’ll try to reach an agreement but the important thing is for the team to defend its interests on the pitch.”

Chelsea allowed big names such as Michael Ballack, Joe Cole, Andriy Shevchenko and Deco to go for nothing.

And in spite of spending £150m on new signings in 2011, it appears Abramovich is prepared to risk losing another four players who cost the club a combined £60m.

On top of that, Chelsea paid £13.5m to Porto for AVB, who celebrated two years in management yesterday.