Roberto di Matteo must stop the rot and silence the voices of discontent

It is vital the Chelsea manager gets a grip after murmurings of dressing-room unrest follow the club’s worrying loss of form
Roberto Di Matteo
James Olley20 November 2012

Chelsea's season is not quite on the line in Italy tonight but Roberto di Matteo faces the task of reversing a momentum that has accounted for each of his predecessors since Jose Mourinho.

It is, of course, farcical that a manager who masterminded the club’s maiden Champions League success should find his position under threat just six months later but then Chelsea operate differently to convention.

Carlo Ancelotti found himself out of work less than a year after winning the Double in 2010 — Avram Grant, Luiz Felipe Scolari and Andre Villas-Boas achieved less — and so Di Matteo’s dramatic victory in Munich affords him little respite regardless of its storybook ending.

The component parts that together bring about managerial change at Stamford Bridge fall into place with alarming yet predictable repetition.

Like clockwork, the euphoria of a high-flying start subsides in November as a drama becomes a crisis gradually enveloping the manager until his position appears untenable.

Murmurings begin over team selection, tactics and then stories emerge of dressing-room unrest, just as they did at The Hawthorns in the wake of Saturday’s 2-1 defeat by West Brom.

The jigsaw pieces are all the same but the complete picture changes to reveal whichever manager is currently in charge with his P45.

Di Matteo made no attempt to hide the heated exchanges between his players after their midlands malaise.

“There was obviously frustration for the result,” he said. “It’s normal when things don’t go your way. We owe ourselves a good performance and anything can happen. But we’ve proven many times before that, when it counts, our players can be counted on. Everyone is fully committed.

“It’s important that we communicate with each other and the players express themselves [in the dressing room]. I’ve always encouraged that.”

That is probably because the alternative is people talking behind his back.

Victor Moses’s last-gasp header to earn a fortunate victory against Shakhtar Donetsk two weeks ago simplified the task here tonight, with a draw good enough to keep qualification from Group E in their own hands ahead of the final match against FC Nordsjaelland at Stamford Bridge.

Yet that success was one of only two from their past seven games and Di Matteo has a difficult task in stopping the rot setting in on a campaign that initially promised so much.

As recent Chelsea managers have found to their cost, Fernando Torres remains central to the conundrum. Play him and he risks blunting his side’s attacking prowess with a player painfully low on form and confidence. Drop him and Di Matteo breaches the owner’s prime directive that Torres must be the team’s focal point. For £50million, he expects nothing less.

Rumours circulating this part of north-western Italy this morning suggest Di Matteo could be prepared to drop the Spaniard in favour of Daniel Sturridge in a reworked system designed to give Chelsea’s ailing defence greater cover.

Oscar scored two great goals in the first meeting with Juventus but he also dropped in to shackle Andrea Pirlo effectively when the Italians had possession and he may be asked to do the same at the Juventus Stadium.

But recent history provides a warning for Chelsea managers looking to impose their authority on the team when visiting these shores.

Back in February, Villas-Boas chose to omit Torres, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole against Napoli and his side were beaten 3-1.

He lasted less than a week. It would be premature to suggest Di Matteo could face a similar fate should Chelsea lose tonight and fall short against Manchester City this weekend but, nevertheless, the 42-year-old has begun the descent on a slippery slope.

“They need to have belief in themselves and that’s the most important aspect,” he said. “We’re all in it together and I believe we have a good group, a good team and are pulling together. We believe we can get a positive result.”

Gary Cahill is relatively new to the hiring and firing culture at Stamford Bridge and looked shellshocked to be dealing with a plethora of questions about

Di Matteo’s position on the eve of such a daunting task.

“When you lose games, does it knock your confidence? Yes,” said the England centre-back.

“However, we have strong characters here. We had a similar dodgy run last year and it’s not something to dwell on too long.

“We have an important week coming up and, if we get the right results, we’re going on the right path.

“We have strong characters in the dressing room who will come through it, no problem whatsoever.”

Whether the under-pressure Di Matteo can come through it, however, remains to be seen.

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