Di Matteo got the best out of Chelsea

They say familiarity breeds contempt, but in the case of Roberto Di Matteo at Chelsea it's quite the opposite. Completing a task set out but never achieved by eight other managers over nine years in the course of just three months, Di Matteo, of Milton Keynes Dons and West Bromwich Albion fame, is quite the anomaly. What does he have over the likes of former managers at Stamford Bridge Jose Mourinho, Guus Hiddink, Carlo Ancelotti and Andre Villas-Boas? And how could he walk in at the end of a crisis season to lift both the FA Cup and Uefa Champions League trophy? Like Josep Guardiola at Barcelona, the answer is simple. Di Matteo knows Chelsea inside out, having been a player there. While all the other managers I've mentioned came in with their own ideas, reputations and thoughts of revolutionising the wheel, Di Matteo just kept his head down and applied what he thought was best for everyone. Talking about the politics of the squad and the preferences of players, Di Matteo knew what made everyone tick in the club. Wary of the nuances and mood swings, he pacified all of them by creating a sense of renewed stability in a club that has had too much disruption and difference of opinion in recent times. As a player at Stamford Bridge, he has an association to the badge and the ideology that demands senior players' respect.And he also possesses the common sense not to cause waves with mass changes or harsh rhetoric. He also isn't that qualified or experienced enough as a coach to risk challenging what his players really want — so he let them be free. And how he's succeeded. While manning the tiller of the good ship Chelsea lightly, in cruise control while someone experienced might come along, Di Matteo neither risked his chips nor sought to create enemies. It's under these circumstances that the harvest was finally reaped.