Reactions to Di Matteo Sacking

Here are some of the reactions to Roberto Di Matteo's shocking exit from Stamford Bridge:

"I’m very disappointed for Roberto, I know him very well, he’s a close friend and that so it is disappointing when you hear that a manager has lost his job, especially when you know them. But like even more so when you feel like you know what I mean I don’t know what more he could have done, I’m hearing Chelsea fans saying they weren’t happy with certain tactics.

"But at the end of the day at the start of the season everybody was enthusing about how great he was. But I suppose when you’ve got an owner like Abravomich who is ruthless, he knows what he wants and he does what he wants, it’s a precarious job to take, you know it still makes me laugh." - Ian Wright, in an interview with Absolute Radio.

"I'm astonished, really. It just goes to show you how precarious we are as Premier League managers, and you can't take anything for granted.

"The shock that should be there for the fans and the media should sound something to the owner of that football club because I don't know if that's the ninth manager or whatever it is in so many short years. It's just not fair.

"As far as I am concerned, he has done absolutely nothing wrong. His philosophy was to perhaps change the look of the team, which he has tried to do - that doesn't happen overnight - and he's won two competitions in less than a year, so it's unbelievable.

"He should walk straight into another job - probably at someone else's misfortune, unfortunately." -  Alan Pardew in press reports from the manager's pre-match briefing for Newcastle's Europa League encounter with Maritimo.

"Wow, Chelsea have sacked their manager!! I'm a bit late I know but its a madness." - Rio Ferdinand on his official Twitter account.

"John Terry has now seen off his ELEVENTH manager at Chelsea. Can you name them all? - Mirror Football's official Twitter feed.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!" - Andre Villas Boas (Ok, I made that one up. The rest are real.)

On a side note, as we await news of Di Matteo's replacement (all signs seem to point to Rafa Benitez), there's some other weird rumour about Didier Drogba returning to Chelsea. Can things get any crazier?