CHELSEA have sacked beleaguered boss Andre Villas-Boas.
In a statement issued this afternoon, the club announced: “The board would like to record our gratitude for his work and express our disappointment that the relationship has ended so early.
“Unfortunately the results and performances of the team have not been good enough and were showing no signs of improving at a key time in the season.”
Roberto Di Matteo has been appointed first team coach on an interim basis until the end of the season.
Villas-Boas was appointed on a three-year contract on 22nd June last year. He set out a manifesto of a team working as a group with no big egos.
However, results failed to reflect his ambition. The club crashed out of the Carling Cup, drifted to fifth in the Premier League and went down 3-1 in the first leg of their Champions League knock-out tie against Napoli.
They face an FA Cup replay at Birmingham on Tuesday. The axe fell after Chelsea's first defeat to West Bromwich Albion in 33 years, and with large number of Blues fans taunting at the game that he would be 'sacked in the morning'.
His contract was worth a reported £14m over its duration, on top of the £28m cost of sacking predecessor Carlo Ancelotti and paying-off Villas-Boas' previous club Porto.
Having managed Chelsea for just 39 competitive games, the Villas-Boas experiment will have cost Chelsea more than £1m per match.
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