Chelsea supremo: Champions League win vindicates AVB sacking

Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay believes the Champions League success vindicated their decision to sack Andre Villas-Boas in March.

The Blues brought in Roberto Di Matteo as interim head coach and under his guidance they lifted the FA Cup and became champions of Europe.

“It’s been up and down. We prepared very well. We started the season in Asia with our preparation and we prepared very, very well,” Gourlay told Sky Sports News.

“We started reasonably well with results, but we hit a bad period around the November, December, January period. We were working very hard, but the performances and results just weren’t there.

“We had to make a change. We brought Robbie in as interim manager until the end of the season and we’ve seen a phenomenal change in the run of results which finished last night with winning the Champions League.”

He added: “It’s been so challenging the last couple of months with lots of rumours about a broken dressing room and things like that which was never true.

“Everyone has seen last night how much the team are together.”