Gus Hiddink has major battle on his hands, what a number of people including myself call Chelsea, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea men. It containing big players and bigger personalities such as John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba.
Hiddink due to take up his dual role as Chelsea manager and Russian international manager on Monday, will have 3 training sessions to assess his players, including Saturdays FA cup game against Watford from The Championship. Which Chelsea won 3-1, Nicolas Anelka scoring a hattrick and playing alongside Drogba.
The downfall of Big Phil Scolari was down to losing the dressing room and big name players after it has been said owner Roman Abramovich met with his senior players before the sacking of Phil Scolari.
The Hiddink effect will have to be almost instant, laying 4th in the Premier League and upcoming Champions League game against former manager Claudio Ranieri’s Italian team Juventus.
What Hiddink brings is a wealth of international experience with leadership of his native Holland, South Korea, Australia and Russian national team. To give you a few examples of the quality of management skills he has was he took an extremely average squad South Korea to the semi finals of the World Cup in 2002.
He has already taken a dual role pre to his Chelsea appointment where he managed PSV and Australia. In which time he actually the Dutch league title.
Hiddink’s trademark is not actually picking the best players but sending out the best team (which seems an old statement however a number of managers still try and mould a team around their best players) with very strict instructions. What Chelsea seemed to lack under Luiz Felipe Scolari is the right balance, namely playing two very similar players Michael Ballack and Frank Lampard togther. What Hiddink will do and must do, is create the strongest midfield, I am sure he will keep the formation at 4-3-3 as he will not have the time to change and reshuffle the pack before their important league games and the return of the Champions League.
I predict that he will drop Michael Ballack, play Mikel, Lampard and Deco, get width with two wider forwards and bring back Drogba. The defence basically picks itself.
Hiddink has been far too successful to allow this not to work and will fancy taking the job full time in the summer, I can see Chelsea finishing 2nd in the league just above rivals Liverpool, however a step too far against Juventus with Ranieri fancing his chances against his former team.
Danny Denhard
Betalabs