Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo happy to let the results do the talking with Arsenal in his sights
For someone so unwilling to discuss the past or the future, it will come as some relief for Roberto Di Matteo that the present could not be too much better for Chelsea or their interim manager.
The Italian does not want to give even a hint of criticising the Andre Villas-Boas regime, which he served as an assistant until the Portuguese was sacked at the start of last month, and can also see no positives in publicly pitching for the full-time role, presumably letting results stake his case.
The 4-2 victory at Aston Villa on Saturday was his sixth win in his eighth match in charge and moved Chelsea within two points of Tottenham on Saturday night but Di Matteo’s surface cracked just slightly when he let slip that he was happy to have moved closer to Arsenal.
The grand targets do not end there, after Chelsea let a two-goal lead slip in the space of three minutes, only to brutally get their hands on three points by scoring two more themselves.
Chelsea have an FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham to come in 13 days and hold a 1-0 advantage going into the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Benfica, who beat Braga 2-1 on Saturday night, on Wednesday.
Villa Park was the arena that saw Roman Abramovich flounce out in the closing stages of a 2-0 defeat just a couple of weeks before Jose Mourinho’s exit in September 2007, but could it also be the venue that saw Di Matteo’s case take another step forward?