Andre Villas-Boas was sacked as Chelsea manager, after just eight months in the job, on this day in 2012.
The then-34-year-old was dismissed less than 24 hours after a 1-0 defeat at West Brom which left the Blues fifth in the Premier League table.
Chelsea confirmed in a statement on the club website that they and the Portuguese had “parted company,” and also announced assistant manager Roberto Di Matteo would take charge of the team until the end of the season.
Villas-Boas was only appointed in June 2011 and cost billionaire owner Roman Abramovich £13.3million from Porto.
Villas-Boas had been under mounting pressure after overseeing what was threatening to be Chelsea’s worst season since Abramovich bought the club in 2003.
A run of just five wins from their last 16 games saw the Blues slide out of the top four in the league, while they were also in danger of crashing out of both the Champions League and FA Cup in the following week-and-a-half.
However, Di Matteo’s first game in charge was a 2-0 win at Birmingham in the FA Cup and the Blues went on to lift the trophy after beating Liverpool 2-1 in the final at Wembley.
Eight days after the win over Birmingham, Chelsea overturned a 3-1 first-leg deficit with a 4-1 victory over Napoli at Stamford Bridge to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
After seeing off Benfica in the last eight, Di Matteo’s side beat Barcelona 3-2 on aggregate in the semi-finals, despite John Terry’s dismissal in the second leg, before defeating Bayern Munich on penalties in the final.
