Roberto Di Matteo is the latest Chelsea manager to get the sack with the club’s place in the knockout stages of the Champions League in jeopardy. Roman Abramovich has now got through eight managers in nine years, spending hunderds of millions of pounds in the process. At 262 days Di Matteo lasted longer than Villas-Boas on 263 and Scolari on 244.
Roberto Di Matteo is the latest Chelsea manager to get the sack with the club’s place in the knockout stages of the Champions League in jeopardy. Roman Abramovich has now got through eight managers in nine years, spending hunderds of millions of pounds in the process. At 262 days Di Matteo lasted longer than Villas-Boas on 263 and Scolari on 244.
Di Matteo won the club the Champions League title that had eluded it for some long, but Abarmovich seems to have regarded this as something of a fluke. He did not want Di Matteo in the first place and was then stuck with him because of the Champions League win. Di Matteo did not provide the flamboyant style of play he likes.
Di Matteo seems to have been well regarded by most Chelsea fans, but they are used to managerial changes by now and will now doubt will accept it with a shrug of regret, although Benitez would not have been their first choice.
What this demonstrates once again is the pressure for short-term success on managers. This is apparent at the lowest as well as the highest level, but the extra ingredient at the top level is the growing importance of Champions League success which is now seen as more important than winning the Premier League.