Don’t be fooled by cool Roberto Di Matteo

Awkward questions – and there have been a few controversies for the club recently – are dead-batted or skilfully deflected or, at times of real pressure, met with a weary sigh. Not for Di Matteo the all-too-public rages of Roberto Mancini, or scarcely-contained but obvious fury of Sir Alex Ferguson – as most of us see.

But, Branislav Ivanovic reveals, there is another side to cool-cat Di Matteo.

And the Serbian defender says you would not want to be on the wrong end of the Italian’s anger as he is really capable of letting fly, and letting his players know precisely what he thinks – and what he does not like.

Chelsea, more than any other Premier League club this season, have ripped up the blueprint and started again. They have bought more than £80million of new young talent, abandoned the old remorseless ways of the past eight years – and, instead, embarked on a brave new world of flowing, adventurous and exciting football.

Ivanovic admits he finds it immensely exciting to be part of this, even if he sometimes does not know what the talents of Oscar and Eden Hazard are going to do next. And presiding over it all with his studied calm, is Di Matteo.

“Yes, the boss is calm and cool and very nice – for most of the time,” said Ivanovic. “But sometimes at half-time you see the real manager. And I don’t think you’d like to see that!

“The way he speaks, you know straight away what is wrong. He does not show that side to the public maybe. But he knows how to speak to us, to put us back on our game.

“Yes, he does get angry. I don’t like to see it because he looks scary. Yes, he throws things sometimes, but not at the players. Sometimes you have to wake your team up or shock them. Robbie is really good at that. I don’t know if he is just doing it for the team or if he is really showing his emotion. But it works.

“Nobody expected it all to work so well, so quickly, and that it has is down to the boss. It’s amazing how he has brought these young players on, encouraged them, helped them. You have to be careful with them.”

Ivanovic, 28, has become a key player at Chelsea since his arrival from Lokomotiv Moscow in January 2008, proving reliable at full-back or centre-back.

Speedy, skilful and quick thinking, he is also not afraid to get forward and is a regular goalscorer – five goals last season, three already this.

He added: “It is a pleasure to play with these players. They can decide a game in an instant. You don’t know what they are going to do from one minute to the next. But the important thing is going to be the bad times. When we are playing well and doing well, everybody thinks that we are amazing. But it is when the difficult times come that you have to be strong.”

Ivanovic, with 56 caps, is a sporting icon in his homeland, where he has become a key figure in the national side since the retirement of Manchester United’s Nemanja Vidic.

And for a quiet individual, he has gradually become one of the leaders of new-look Chelsea.

He said: “When I came there were a lot of leaders – like Didier Drogba. Of course John Terry, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole, they are all leaders, all still here, all know what it takes to win. I am one of the experienced ones now as well. It is what you do on the pitch that counts.”

A by-product of new-found attacking flair is that the goals are flying in at the other end. Shakhtar Donetsk’s brace in the Champions League on Wednesday made it 14 conceded in just six games.

“We have to defend well. We have to improve and we will do that,” added Ivanovic, whose side face Liverpool tomorrow. When I first came here, Chelsea was a machine. If you wanted to play you had to be part of that, be strong. It is a different team now, and we must find a balance. We can improve, amd be consistent.”

And, like their manager – be cool. On the outside, at least.

The Chelsea FC Foundation runs six Kickz projects across London, delivering programmes to almost 500 young people every week, providing positive diversions away from crime and anti-social behaviour.