The 26-year-old has had to compete with John Terry and David Luiz in the Chelsea rearguard in 2012/13.

And while the former Bolton defender has not played as many games as he would have liked, he believes life under Di Matteo is better than the 'madness' of Andre Villas-Boas' time in charge of the club.

"It has been frustrating for me at times this season, I'm not going to lie – like on Tuesday night in the Champions League (against Shakhtar Donetsk), the rotating," Cahill told Sunday Mirror Sport.

"I think you can accept it if you are playing the same amount of games as everybody else. That's the only way you can come to terms with it.

"When I first came into the club, it was a bit of a whirlwind with all sorts going on. Trying to find my feet was a bit strange. It's unsettling for a start and then to come into the club that was ­unsettled at the time, it was double madness.

"But, 100 percent, Chelsea is now a different club from the one I joined. It took a couple of months, but ­everything has settled down now and I knew that would happen."