Di Matteo's stock at a real high but a week is a long time in football

SOCCER ANGLES:The interim Chelsea boss's future could well be decided by visits to Arsenal and Barcelona

FROM the other end of the Championship comes a different tale. The morning after Coventry City’s 1-0 home defeat to Millwall, the Coventry Telegraph included these words in their match report: “A disastrous season, and a potentially bleak future, for the cash-strapped club could well be sealed at the weekend.”

Coventry have not been in the third tier of English football since they were in the old Third Division in 1964. For it to be called ‘League One’ now is no consolation should they fall. If so, and given Coventry’s finances, it could be a long time before they play Reading again.

CHELSEA HAVE not finished outside the top four in the last nine Premier League seasons. West Bromwich Albion lost 13 of their last 18 matches before Roberto Di Matteo’s dismissal last February. Chelsea are in the FA Cup final and have just beaten Barcelona 1-0 in the Champions League semi-final first leg. Di Matteo is the interim manager at Stamford Bridge.

Something doesn’t add up here. It could be called the Di Matteo Paradox.

It is 48 days since Chelsea finally decided to sack Andre Villas-Boas, who this time last year they were thinking about only covetously. After many weeks of muttering, Chelsea chose to act against Villas-Boas following a 1-0 defeat at West Brom.

In came Di Matteo, who as Villas-Boas’s assistant probably played some role in preparing Chelsea for the visit to his former club at the Hawthorns.

But Di Matteo stayed, he is a Stamford Bridge old-boy, as AVB headed for the beach. Some 24 hours later Chelsea won a tricky FA Cup replay at Birmingham City and in the 12 games since have lost only once, 2-1 at Manchester City.

Ten of these 13 games under Di Matteo have been won. It is a record Jose Mourinho would smile at. The hierarchy at West Brom, meanwhile, must have been head-scratching.

They sacked Di Matteo to avoid relegation. It worked. So where does Chelsea’s upturn under their former midfielder leave the club?

The half-flippant answer is at Wembley and at the Nou Camp. But there is also the Premier League, where Chelsea are sixth. Admittedly, Chelsea are just two points off fourth and should they win today, they would be four points off third with a game in hand.

It’s just that today, at 12.45, Chelsea go to Arsenal. Bearing in mind that the Gunners have had a strange, unconvincing season and that they lost at home to Wigan on Monday night, a journey to north London may not have the well-travelled Chelsea legs trembling.

But Arsenal scored five against the Blues earlier this season and deserve to be favourites today. The game is a test for Arsène Wenger’s players after Monday’s shock defeat and they can expect to be motivated. It would be a surprise, albeit small, to see Chelsea win.

If they do, then Di Matteo will have earned yet more credibility. If they don’t, then Chelsea go to Barcelona for Tuesday’s second leg knowing that it could be their most realistic route into a Champions League spot they have occupied for almost a decade.

Di Matteo has received a lot of praise for what the team did to Barca on Wednesday, when Didier Drogba’s goal gave them a famous victory over the European champions. There were, apparently, nods of approval internally at the tweaked tactical repositioning of Frank Lampard to the right of midfield.

Yet what cannot be talked away is that the night was about what Barcelona didn’t do as much as what Chelsea did. It is hard to imagine the Londoners’ woodwork being so important in Catalonia.

If there is more blue good fortune, then Roman Abramovich should appoint Di Matteo. Chelsea got past Tottenham with the aid of a quite atrocious refereeing decision which put them 2-0 up in the FA Cup semi-final. They overcame Wigan at home 2-1 with two offside goals, while Benfica’s challenge at Stamford Bridge was undermined by the unmerited 40th minute red card for Maxi Pereira. And even after that the Lisbon team troubled Chelsea.

All the while Di Matteo stood calmly on the touchline, a contrast to the contorted Villas-Boas and his micro-management style.

It is better to be a lucky general, and all that – and though a trip to Arsenal cannot be described as the best of luck, the fact that in Spain Barcelona will be fiercely involved in ‘El Clasico’ tonight is not the worst of timing for Chelsea.

It still feels unwise for them to bank on progress to the final in Munich and if that doubt is proven, then what happens? What do they think of Di Matteo then?

The conundrum he poses now might not be so entertaining next Wednesday, in which case it will be back to square one at Stamford Bridge while the players are urged to scramble for fourth place with an FA Cup final in the middle of their remaining four Premier League games.

Those Chelsea stalwart players were described yesterday as “self-medicating”, which is another factor in making the measurement of just what Di Matteo has done so difficult.

Even in praising the Italian caretaker after Wednesday, one of those stalwarts, Petr Cech, nudged the Di Matteo conundrum theory along. Asked about what has changed since Villas-Boas left and Di Matteo stepped in, Cech replied:

“Sometimes you do things right and the outcome is wrong. Sometimes you do things wrong and win. It is sport.”

Hunt and Reading reap their reward

IN a corridor at Upton Park three Saturdays ago, Noel Hunt stood in his Reading tracksuit and talked about this season and last, to compare and contrast. Manager Brian McDermott rested against a wall looking composed rather than weary, though the tension had been acute.

Hunt had just scored in Reading's decisive, impressive 4-2 victory at promotion favourites West Ham to give the Royals real belief that automatic promotion could be theirs and not the Hammers'. So it has proved. Hunt recalled Reading's painfully narrow play-off final defeat to Swansea last May and spoke frankly: "I drank myself into a coma for a week after it.
"It was a gutting experience. I can remember it all, every incident. We never gave up – that's the manager. No, we don't want to be back in the play-offs but we've to take one game at a time. Hopefully last season at Wembley has hardened us. You don't want that again."

Reading won't have it again. They are so hard to beat that after West Ham they won away at Brighton and Southampton, two other serious challengers. On Tuesday Reading confirmed their place back in the Premier League next season. They look certainties to win the division. Hunt has played in 40 of the 44 league games so far. He has eight goals. He has done his bit.