Abramovich enlists Hiddink to heal Chelsea's divisions

Dominic Fifield
The Guardian
Wednesday 11 February 2009

Guus Hiddink will be confirmed as Chelsea's short-term replacement for Luiz Felipe Scolari this week and has already been offered a stark picture of what awaits him at Stamford Bridge. John Terry last night hinted at the schisms that had wrecked the Brazilian's brief tenure in west London when he said that he and only "two or three other players" had been supportive of the deposed manager.

Roman Abramovich followed his ruthless dismissal of Scolari after less than seven months at the helm by moving swiftly yesterday to smooth Hiddink's release from the Russian Football Federation to take charge at the Premier League club until the end of the season on a part-time basis. There appears to be no provision to extend that arrangement beyond the end of the current campaign – Hiddink is committed to guiding Russia to the 2010 World Cup finals – and the 62-year-old Dutchman, who has expressed enthusiasm for the role, will now better comprehend the task that awaits him.

Terry, speaking ahead of England's friendly in Spain tonight, was reluctant to talk about the upheaval gripping his club but intimated that Hiddink will effectively inherit a split dressing room. "I'm just very shocked by what's happened," Chelsea's captain said. "Scolari had my support. Two or three other players will say exactly the same thing, I'm sure. Unfortunately we weren't playing well and it falls on his head. Maybe people should look at some of us. We did underachieve. It's unfortunate because the manager is a great man.

"We've not been performing well either individually or collectively as a squad, and that falls on the manager's head, which is unfair because a few of us feel we could have done better in our time with the manager. One or two of us feel we could have done better. We started off very well, but things dipped in terms of form and results. At the end of the day it's about results. That's unfortunate for Mr Scolari. But the overall picture needs to be looked at. The powers at the club need to look at that."

Abramovich, who was at Stamford Bridge yesterday, had grown disturbed by the team's recent malaise – they have won only four of their past 12 league games – and is understood to have met the senior players Petr Cech, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack at the club's training ground last Thursday, where their views were aired. While Terry and Frank Lampard had expressed concern at an apparent lack of intensity in training under Scolari earlier in the season, the normally influential pair had remained broadly supportive of the manager, yet others clearly harboured serious doubts over the Brazilian.

Those concerns were shared by the owner, who has now turned to one of his most trusted confidants in football and, indeed, a manager he has twice previously attempted to secure at Chelsea. Hiddink, who won a European Cup with PSV Eindhoven in 1988 and has since excelled at international level, is due back in Moscow today after the break-up of Russia's training camp in a Turkish Mediterranean resort and will meet Vitaly Mutko, head of the Russian Football Federation, before formally opening talks with Chelsea.

Those discussions are expected to move speedily towards resolution, though the Dutchman is unlikely to be in the dug-out when his new team play Watford in the fifth round of the FA Cup on Saturday. He will earn a basic salary, supplementing the money he earns with Russia, for the 15 weeks' work he will undertake, with attractive bonuses linked to Chelsea's progress in the Champions League and Premier League up to the end of the season.

"If it was any other club aside from Chelsea my answer would be a straight no," Hiddink said. "But Chelsea is different because I have good relations with the owner, so I would like to help them in this situation if I could. This would be a full managerial role, a day-to-day job. But this would only be for the next two or three months until the end of the season.

"Of course when Russia play [World Cup qualifiers against Azerbaijan and Liechtenstein on 28 March and 1 April] I would go there to coach them as there won't be any [Chelsea] games during that time.I have already two jobs before, a couple of years ago when I was coaching Australia and PSV Eindhoven, so I'm familiar with the situation." Chelsea will take stock at the end of the current campaign in the hope that Hiddink has enjoyed some measure of success in both the domestic league and European competition. There remains the possibility of them luring Carlo Ancelotti, another coach much admired by Abramovich, from Milan, with the Italian expected to leave San Siro after eight years in charge. "If the position is open in July then I think he might consider it," said the Milan ­director Umberto Gandini.