ANDRE VILLAS-BOAS will have “no problem” picking John Terry to face Anton Ferdinand when Chelsea play Queens Park Rangers a week tomorrow despite his captain’s court appearance four days later to face a charge of racially abusing the defender.

Terry denies the allegation and Villa-Boas insists the England international will be in the right frame of mind for the FA Cup fourth-round tie at Loftus Road.

“I’ll have no problem picking John. Not at all. He’ll have to compete against three others (Gary Cahill, Branislav Ivanovic and David Luiz) but we’ll make the right decision.”

Villas-Boas claims the media have a responsibility before the match not to inflame a potentially explosive situation.

“What are you going to do to make that environment a bit better, in terms of headlines and how much time we’re going to see taken up with Anton v Terry?

“It makes no sense at all. If you want to finish, avoid speculating about it, about the return to QPR, a repetition of the images. We can play our part but so can the media. It’s important to kick any discrimination out of the game but this game won’t be a reminder of those incidents. It’ll be an intense cup game between two London teams and hopefully it will be well contested between 22 players.”

Mark Hughes, the QPR manager, said he would welcome the police talking to his players before the tie should they wish to do so.

“I haven’t had any communication from any police authorities. Maybe the club have but, if there is a feeling that the police need to speak to the players, I’m sure I would have been told about that. If they feel that’s necessary we’ll do that.”

Rangers are still working on a deal to sign Alex from Chelsea, and Hughes is hopeful that Manchester City’s Nedum Onuoha will soon join the club.

“I would like to think at some point I’ll be able to speak to him directly and make him understand what we want to do here,” Hughes said of Onuoha.

QPR are reported to have agreed a deal with AC Milan to buy the left-back Taye Taiwo and Hughes may also make a further bid for Chris Samba of Blackburn.

The Blackburn manager, Steve Kean, remains defiant that Samba is going nowhere: “I spoke with him yesterday and he knows he is not for sale. The day before he handed in a transfer request, that has been refused and we won’t welcome any more bids.”

Villas-Boas yesterday rejected Carlo Ancelotti’s claims Chelsea needed to sell Didier Drogba for Fernando Torres to flourish.

Ancelotti, who Villas-Boas succeeded as Chelsea manager last summer, suggested €60 million man Torres had failed to shine at Stamford Bridge because Drogba “devours” all of his goalscoring rivals.

New Paris St Germain manager Ancelotti insisted the only solution was to get rid of Drogba but Villas-Boas said: “For me, it’s not the case. Fernando has been with us a year and is in a great moment of form and looking sharp.”

Torres has indeed improved in recent weeks but that has coincided with Drogba’s absence at the African Nations Cup.

“It’s nothing to do with one being present and the other one not,” Villas-Boas said. “In a club of our dimension, we have top competition.”