The 2011-2012 season will long live in Blues' fans memories as the season when they finally reached their Holy Grail, the Champions League. Few will remember their side's lowly sixth place league finish. Another FA Cup success only added gloss to an eventful season, which looked destined to go on the wayside at one point until a miraculous revival meant it ended in glorious fashion. After hiring and firing four managers in recent years, Roman Abrahamovic brought on Andre Villas Boas, one of the hottest prospects in football management, to take over from Carlo Ancelotti in the summer. The main addition to the Blues' squad at the start of the season was Spanish playmaker Juan Manuel Mata. Oriol Romeu and Romelu Lukaku, who also joined in the summer, were more investments in the future. Indeed, the general feeling then was that Chelsea's ageing squad would need a few more signings to add to the arrivals of Ramires, David Luiz and Fernando Torres in the previous season. With Michael Essien going down with another long term injury and Chelsea failing in their bid to attract Luka Modric to Stamford Bridge, Villas Boas brought in Raul Meireles on deadline day to beef up his midfield. The Blues started the season rather well under their new manager but cracks soon started to appear. Their first defeat of the campaign at Old Trafford was marked by the miss of the season from Fernando Torres, who spent most of the campaign trying to shake off the curse that seems to have been cast on him since he left Liverpool. Try as he might, the Spaniard could hardly buy a goal for most of the season, eventually losing his place as the main striker to Didier Drogba. The Blues made good ground in the Champions League's group stage. Villas Boas usually deployed a three-man attack with Sturridge and Mata either side and Ramires, Lampard and Meireles in the midfield. In defence, David Luiz, in spite of a few mistakes, imposed himself alongside John Terry in the middle while Branko Ivanovic and Ashley Cole usually started at full backs. Players like Alex, Jon Obi Mikel, Jose Bosingwa, Salomon Kalou and Paulo Ferreira were seldom used by the Portuguese technician. Reinforcement at the back came in January in the shape of Gary Cahill at the start of the year but results took a turn for the worse in February, particularly with a defeat at Benfica in the Champions League round of 16 first leg. Faced with the prospect of his side going out of the European stage and still playing catch up in the league, and possibly lending an ear to Chelsea's well documented player power, Roman Abrahamovic sacked Villas Boas in early February. After a number of attempts at bringing in another big name, the Russian finally settled for Villas Boas' number two, former Chelsea player and fan favourite Roberto Di Matteo, as interim first team coach. The Italian had a blinder in charge, securing safe passage to the final stages of the Champions League and the FA Cup. He re-inflated belief in the side with players like Mikel and Kalou coming back in contention and contributing to the effort in the final stages of the season. Even Fernando Torres, who was cutting an increasingly desperate figure under Villas Boas seemed re-born at times with goals starting to come back his way. Di Matteo masterminded his side's Champions League semi final success over Barcelona, taking a page from Jose Mourinho's book and rather easily outplayed a poor Liverpool at Wembley to lift the FA Cup. With a top four finish out of reach, the Blues went all out for success in the Champions League final against Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena on May 19th and amazingly overcame the mighty Germans on their own patch, with Didier Drogba claiming a place in the club's history with the equaliser two minutes from time and the winning penalty. It remains to be seen whether Di Matteo will have done enough to get the job full time but he could hardly have done better.
