Villas-Boas takes on Di Matteo at White Hart Lane tomorrow lunchtime in a game that is bursting at the seams with plots, sub plots, new ideas and old scores. For the first time in many a season, Tottenham Hotspur versus Chelsea will be the real glamour derby that this fixture always promises but rarely delivers. Here are two men who want to win with panache; young men, at that, fighting for the right to be hailed as the Premiership's funkiest manager, with all the GQ cover, late night chat show kudos that comes with the package. They are both salesmen, in truth; AVB is the quietly-spoken showroom charmer you can imagine gently pushing expensive diving watches in Bond Street, Di Matteo the arch but genial everyman who will show up at your house in his Range Rover and sell you a set of pricey Japanese kitchen knives.
Each has successfully sold a methodology to his respective chairman and been generously backed in the transfer market, and while the pressure on Di Matteo will be swiftly and painfully applied from on high should Chelsea's excellent run come to an end, both men will have reason to feel they have ended up in very plush surroundings that were probably beyond their immediate ambitions a matter of months ago.
