LONDON // Andre Villas-Boas expects to be sacked by Chelsea if he fails to engineer instant success in his first year as manager of the Premier League club.
Villas-Boas was hired last week as Chelsea's seventh manager in eight years under the club's ruthless Russian owner, Roman Abramovich.
"What you expect from this club is to be successful straight away," Villas-Boas said at his official presentation today. "I will be surprised to be kept on the job if I don't win.
"The expectations of the club are at the maximum — no doubt we have a compromise with a certain amount of trophies. The managers who have sat in this chair have been challenged for the trophies. There's nothing that the owner told me that I didn't know, to challenge for the trophies in every area."
Villas-Boas quit Porto after leading the side to three trophies last season, including the Portuguese league and the Europa League, in his one year in charge. His contract was terminated after the club received payment of €15 million (Dh79.1m) to trigger his release clause.
"It was a difficult separation. It's something that was felt hard in Portugal. My commitment was 100 per cent to Porto and it will always be my club," Villas-Boas said. "I always felt well in Porto ... but everyone feels the need for a new challenge.
"The move to Chelsea was based on a very lucrative move ... Porto was able to beat their offer. Porto made an extremely competitive offer to stay."
Roberto Di Matteo, the former Chelsea midfielder, is also returning to the club as No 2 to Villas-Boas.
The Italian was with the west London club between 1996 and 2002 when injury forced his retirement at the age of 31. He scored FA Cup final goals in 1997 and 2000, the first of which set a Wembley record for the earliest in a final after just 43 seconds. Di Matteo was previously manager of Milton Keynes Dons and West Bromwich Albion, the club he left in February.
Villas-Boas is often compared to compatriot Jose Mourinho, who he worked under as a scout at Chelsea from 2004-07 and then with the Italian giants Inter Milan.
In Mourinho's first media conference at Chelsea, he declared himself to be the "Special One." Villas-Boas' entrance was not so grand.
"The title, I will wait for you guys to give it me. I hope I am successful and you give me a good title in the end. This is not a one-man show - it's about creating empathy and raising ambitions with everyone around me. Maybe I should be the "group one."
The 33-year-old Portuguese coach said his approach will be "winning with a certain amount of attacking flair."
