Roberto Di Matteo admitted yesterday that he will be regarded as a failure if Chelsea do not qualify for the Champions League this season.
The interim first-team coach has dramatically improved morale at the club by leading Chelsea to four successive victories since replacing André Villas-Boas after the Portuguese was sacked a fortnight ago, but only one of those wins has come in the Barclays Premier League.
Di Matteo has exceeded expectations by overseeing Chelsea’s progress to the Champions League quarter-finals and FA Cup semi-finals, but they remain fifth in the table and under pressure to keep winning going into the match away to Manchester City tomorrow.
Chelsea are three points behind Arsenal, who are fourth and boast a superior goal difference, and also face a potentially difficult match on Saturday, when Tottenham Hotspur visit Stamford Bridge.
Di Matteo is confident that Chelsea can catch one or both of their London rivals, but conceded that cup success would not atone for a failure to meet what is seen as their minimum target.
Advertisement
“It would be bad, really bad, if we do not finish in the top four,” Di Matteo said. “Entering the top four in the league and returning to the Champions League is our target. Everyone at the club feels this responsibility and we will do our best to succeed.
“I do not even think of such an eventuality [as failure]. We are Chelsea, we have great players and we will do our best to achieve what, for a club like this, is the minimum goal for the season.”
Di Matteo’s appointment was widely interpreted as a desperate measure after Rafael Benítez rejected Roman Abramovich’s offer to take over until the end of the season, but the Italian believes that he deserved the opportunity despite a mixed managerial record.
Di Matteo is also adamant that he did nothing to undermine Villas-Boas, who was dismissed by Abramovich this month after only 40 matches in charge.
“I deserve my new role and I did not hesitate when I was offered this chance,” he said. “How can you hesitate when you have the opportunity to manage one of the most important football clubs in the world? All new managers replace a colleague when things go wrong or results are not up to expectations. I did my best and André knows it. He is a great manager and a great person and I will always respect him a lot.
Advertisement
“I did not conspire against him and all the decisions we took, we took together. I have always behaved with the utmost professionalism and loyalty towards the club, the staff, the team and fans.”
Di Matteo may well again make wholesale changes for the match against City after resting seven players at the weekend from the Champions League win over Napoli last week. Fernando Torres’s reward for scoring twice in the 5-2 FA Cup victory over Leicester City is likely to be a return to the substitutes’ bench, with Didier Drogba coming back into the side.
John Terry’s participation at the Etihad Stadium remains in doubt, however, because the captain has been unable to complete a full training session since limping off with a longstanding knee problem against Napoli.
Di Matteo conceded that keeping all of his players happy is among the most difficult aspects of his new role, but claimed that the Chelsea dressing room is not unruly. “I have never known a dressing room or a group of players which is easy for a manager to control,” Di Matteo said. “Of course there are strong personalities that occasionally collide with each other during the course of a season.
“It is obvious that it is sometimes a challenge to keep so many top players in the same side happy. Everybody wants to play every game and everyone always wants to win, but there is no problem with this dressing room. Here at Chelsea, we only have top-level footballers and great professional players.”