Villas-Boas Takes Chelsea Helm, Hughton at Birmingham City

Andre Villas-Boas has been named as the successor for Carlo Ancelotti after exactly a month after his sacking.

So Chelsea have been swift in appointing a new manager just as Chief executive Ron Gourlay promised, but have they made a mistake in appointing a 33-year-old, who has just 20 months experience of managing a football team?

It might be too early to call now, but going by the statistical records of the Portuguese, it is difficult to spot any flaws in it. He won everything there is to win at Porto, including the Liga Sagres, while he did extremely well in his first job at Académica.

Given the incredible number of similarities with José Mourinho, comparisons would be inevitable. However, he has been able to downplay the expectations by focusing on the successes that he is aiming to achieve.

In his first interview to Chelsea TV, Villas-Boas spoke in length about the changes that he would like to make to the team. On each and every occasion, he never failed to mention the terms, "We are a technical staff," which says something about his belief in teamwork.

It is something exactly opposite to José Mourinho's style, who firmly believed in making everything look at him to take the pressure off the team.

Villas-Boas has been speaking about the pressure upon him to deliver trophies, but rather than being afraid of the sack, he says that he can prove himself. Not only is this 33-year-old extremely confident, but he seems to have the right weapons in his arsenal to put his thoughts into effect.

The next new appointment comes in the form of Chris Hughton, who takes over the duties from Alex McLeish at Birmingham City. Hughton has been out of work since getting the sack at Newcastle during December 2010.

Even though taking over at Birmingham City might once again put him back into the Championship, it would be a great chance for Hughton to once again prove himself. Not only did Hughton take Newcastle back into the Premier League, but did relatively well during this time with the Geordies.

Hughton faced competition from the likes of former West Brom manager Roberto di Matteo, but he seems to have sufficiently made an impression on acting chairman Peter Pannu.

He is going to face a tough time at St Andrews given the huge number of players expected to leave the club. The likes of Roger Johnson, Craig Gardner, Ben Foster and Scott Dann staying with the club look to the extremely low. Given the financial constraints, the transfer budget could also be quite low.

One can also add the fixture pileup, likely to be due to the Europa League, to the problems that he could be facing this season. The only consolation might be that the sale of some of the key players could generate quite a bit of revenue.

However, it needs to be invested shrewdly if Birmingham City hold any hope of getting back into the Premier League at the first shot.