SPECIAL ONE: Andre Villas-Boas appointed new Chelsea manager after working with Jose Mourinho

Chelsea have confirmed Andre Villas-Boas as their new manager. In a statement, the club said: "Chelsea Football Club is delighted to announce that Andre Villas-Boas will be the club's new manager. He has signed a three-year contract and will start work immediately. Andre was the outstanding candidate for the job. He is one of the most talented young managers in football today and has already achieved much in a relatively short space of time.

"His ambition, drive and determination matches that of Chelsea and we are confident Andre's leadership of the team will result in greater successes in major domestic and European competitions. Andre will bring his coaching experience back to a club he is already very familiar with, having previously worked here for three years. He has always been highly regarded at Chelsea and everyone here looks forward to welcoming him back and working with him."

It follows feverish speculation about his impending appointment and Chelsea was forced to confirm their interest in the former Porto coach thus making the 33 year-old their seventh manager in eight years and youngest in the club's history, replacing Italian Carlo Ancelotti who lost his job after a barren season in which the club failed to match his double-winning debut season. Villas-Boas speaking to the official club website Chelseafc.com about the challenge of managing a club of Chelsea's standing, he said: "I think it is a massive individual challenge which I felt I should take. I went to a magnificent year in Porto and the split from Porto is not something that is not easy for me because it is my club, the club I have defended a lot. Porto is my city and there is no running away from it, Porto supporters will always feel like there is nothing I can say that will delete their sense of being betrayed. But I felt it was a challenge I needed to make with the importance of Chelsea, the importance of the Premier League and happily I left Porto with good success. Now I face this new challenge and focus again on being successful at Chelsea." As part of the backroom staff of former manager Jose Mourinho, he is aware there will be imminent comparisons with the mercurial Portugese.

"I think there is no way you can avoid comparison, it is something that is the interest of the media. I didn't take the Porto job nor the Chelsea job because Jose made the same steps. They are two of the most sought-after clubs in the world and in the end I had the opportunity and was able to make them find something in me that they thought would continue their route to success. Chelsea appointed me basically for human qualities and that is what I want to bring into this club again. The most important thing is to motivate the players to get their ambitions right, to reflect again on what the club has achieved in the last six years and we need to keep this route to success.

"Chelsea is a club that in the last six years has achieved so much and people are expecting us to be on the same way. There is not going to be more or less tolerance for me if I am not successful so this is the challenge I face and I feel confident that we can motivate everybody, not only the players but also the structure. I feel confident I can respond to the ambitions of the supporters and the ambitions of the owner and the administration."

Profile: Andre Villas-Boas

Andre Villas-Boas returns to Chelsea after a gap of just under four years. He was our scout responsible for assessing opposition teams throughout Jose Mourinho's time in charge of the team which was between the summer of 2004 and September 2007. He remained part of Mourinho's staff when Inter appointed the ex-Chelsea manager as their new coach for the 2008/09 season, allowing Andre to extend his experience of working in Europe's big clubs and experience more trophy success as the Italian club won the Serie A title.

Shortly after the start of the following season came the chance to move into management in his own right, the offer coming from Portuguese club Academica from the city of Coimbra. Raising the previously struggling club up to 11^th in the table by the end of the season and into a League Cup semi-final impressed Porto sufficiently for Andre's former club to give him the senior coaching position with less than one year's experience of that role. He did not disappoint them. The club returned to the type of silverware haul they enjoyed under Mourinho, winning the Portuguese Super Cup at the start of the season and progressing to win a domestic league and cup double and the Europa League by beating another Portuguese side, Braga, 1-0 in Dublin in May. Aged 33, Andre became the youngest manager to win a European trophy.

At home Porto had broken their own record for games unbeaten at the start of the season in all competitions, previously set in the Mourinho era. They played 36 times before losing a group stage League Cup game. They went through the league campaign unbeaten, drawing just three games out of 30 and scoring 73 goals as they finished a record 21 points ahead of second-placed Benfica, earning praise for their attacking style of football both at home and in Europe. Andre was the first at Chelsea to hold the opposition scout role as a dedicated, full-time position and was innovative in the use of up-to-date computer and video technology to brief the coaching staff and players. It played an important part in bringing back-to-back Premier League titles and FA Cup and Carling Cup victories to Stamford Bridge.

His involvement in professional football began as a 17-year-old when then Porto manager Bobby Robson moved into the same building in the city. A young enthusiast for the sport, Andre soon enjoyed conversations with the highly-experienced ex-England manager. With an English grandmother, he spoke the language to a very high standard which also helped his work when he moved to Chelsea. He was invited along to Porto training sessions and Robson recommended his new protégé travel to the UK to take courses. He became the youngest person to gain the FA's coaching qualification. Robson then made Andre the youth team coach at Porto where he remained until Mourinho's arrival seven years later, when he began working in the role he fulfilled at Chelsea first time around. Porto won two Portuguese League titles, the Portuguese Cup, the Uefa Cup and the Champions League before the coaching team moved to London in 2004.

(Source: Chelseafc.com)