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With two of the game's most prestigious trophies and an ink-barely-dry two-year contract under his belt, Roberto Di Matteo surveys his next challenge at Chelsea.

On the face of it, the man who succeeded where so many have failed before appears to be in a no-win situation.

After steering the side to an FA Cup and European Cup double as caretaker boss last season, the bar appears to be set so high for the Italian that anything below that standard will be considered failure.

But after recruiting Eden Hazard and Marko Marin - and with Hulk also understood to be on the way - Chelsea's owner Roman Abramovich will be hoping Di Matteo can do even better.

For his part, the Italian wants to take on the critics who looked at the way the Blues defended their way to glory in Munich and dismissed the club’s style of play as not expansive and attractive enough.

“If you judge our work on three games out of the 21 [both legs of the Champions League semi against Barcelona and the final against bayern Munich] I was involved in, you forget all the other games - the 4-2 against Napoli, the 5-1 against Tottenham (in the FA Cup semi-final) and all the other games where the team expressed their offensive potential.

“On average, we scored two goals every game.

"My teams usually create chances and score goals, so it’s a bit unjustified to just focus on three games and give us a tag like that.

“We had some players out in the final against Bayern and I’ve not seen any other team play expansively against Barcelona.

(Image: Getty)

"It’s not fair to give us that label based on three games.”

‘Fair’, however, is not a word any Chelsea manager of the Abramovich era is well versed with - unless it comes to sorting out his severance cheque!

Di Matteo is well aware that titles and trophies will be his only defence come next May if his team is again charged with being insufficiently easy on the eye.

Little wonder then that he checked himself when asked how long it will take to make the team his own.

“That certainly will happen slowly, over time.” he added, “I don’t think it will be an overnight thing. I wouldn’t expect radical changes.

“I would like us to be a good team that can compete and always in the frame for the targets this club has.

“We certainly have to make up ground (in the Premier League) because we finished 25 points behind the leaders, so that’s going to be a big job.”

Asked if the coming season could be harder for him because of so many expectations on both himself and his team of European champions, Di Matteo said: “Well, last season wasn’t easy.

“Having won the European title might bring some expectations, yes, but I think it’s a club that has always had expectations. That’s nothing new for our players.

“I don’t see any reason to change. I am the way I am - this is me. The way I operate is me and that’s not going to change in the future.

“I have my way to communicate with the players and I’ll continue with that. My job is too make them feel confident and to put thier talent for the service of the team and try to win games.”

Some of Chelsea’s Champions League heroes - Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and Jose Bosingwa - have since left the club.

(Image: Getty)

But the Blues are understood to be closing in on experienced Inter Milan and Brazil right-back Maicon.

Di Matteo waxed lyrical about the new signings - up to a point.

He said: “Eden Hazard is a wonderful and fantastic player. He is young and has already achieved a lot.

“He has been named Player of the Season twice in France with Lille. But we shouldn’t forget he is still young, he is only 21.

"He is a very exciting player and can bring a lot of creativity to our team.

“Marko Marin is another exciting player. He is a very offensive winger, midfielder. He can play in various positions, which is very helpful for the team and myself. He is another young player who we will be looking to integrate in the team.”

When asked about Porto goal-machine Hulk though, Di Matteo joked: “I’m not going to discuss our targets. Every time you say something the price goes up!”

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The Chelsea boss did insist, however, that the west Londoners still have a strong squad despite this summer's departures.

He said: “We still have an experienced team, if you look at Cech, Terry, Cahill, Lampard, Cole, Ivanovic and Torres. Even David Luiz and Jon Obi Mikel have played many games so I think we still have an experienced team.”

That said, Di Matteo does intend to integrate some of the youngsters in whom Chelsea have invested so much time, money and faith over the last few seasons.

He went on: “We have a lot of youngsters here, like (striker Romelu) Lukaku, (midfielder Josh) McEachran and (left-back Ryan) Bertrand. So I’ll be looking at them and see how they are developing and progressing.”

Talented young keeper Thibault Courtois, who helped Atletico Madrid to the Europa League title while on loan last season, will go back to the Spanish club for another year.

But attacking midfielder Kevin De Bruyne will be at Chelsea for pre-season after the 21-year-old spent the second half of last season on loan at Racing Genk.

Di Matteo went on: “We have plenty of games - look at last season. I will have to make decisions in terms of finding the right balance for the team in each game.”

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