Sunday, February 15, 2009

Hiddink next in the Chelsea hot seat


Chelsea have named Dutchman Guus Hiddink as the successor to Luiz Felipe Scolari. Hiddink will finish the season on an interim basis, working double duty between the hot seat at Chelsea and his post as the Russia National team manager.

Where Hiddink has a very impressive CV - European Cup winners in 1987 with PSV; successful national team stints with Holland, South Korea, Australia and Russia - but as Sky Sports' Andy Gray mentions in his column, rather than jump on the Hiddink bandwagon, he thinks the same issues that did Scolari in are still present at Chelsea.

"In my view, Luiz Felipe Scolari's CV is probably every bit as good as Gus Hiddink's," said Gray.

"Of course, Hiddink enjoyed European Cup success in 1988 - but that's a long time ago - and has won Dutch titles but how does that translate to Premier League success? Not easily, in my book.

The Premier League, as Scolari found out, is a totally different ball-game. I'm not saying Hiddink won't revive Chelsea because I've huge respect for the man.
But he is joining a club that is impatient, that has players who are capable of sniping and back-biting when they are not flavour of the month. The squad needs guidance and discipline and Hiddink has to say 'I'm the gaffer and we do it my way'.

One advantage he has over Scolari is that he will be able to walk onto the training ground and dictate what's going on to everybody. Conversing in the language of the league you are playing in is so important and there's no doubt Scolari struggled there."
What Hiddink does have to his advantage is his tremendous track record of adapting his tactics to the personnel he inherits, using 'total football' philosophies that have proven in club and international football. Jamie Jackson of the guardian.co.uk does a great job illustrating how Hiddink has been able to do that on each of his stops along the way.
"According to the man who mentored Hiddink as a player in Holland, it is his tactical versatility that marks him out. Piet de Visser, Roman Abramovich's chief football adviser and the man who recommended Hiddink for Russia and Chelsea, says his Dutch compatriot is "not a coach who always demands the same system for his teams. He looks at the players, gets to know their best strengths and then decides the system."
Hiddink does have a track record for correcting some of the issues with the current Chelsea side - including fitness and man-management - as illustrated in Jonathan Wilson's blog on the guardian.co.uk.
"Hiddink's sides have a reputation for formidable fitness. A pre-World Cup training camp in 2002 made his South Korea side so fit that he even had to deny dark – and groundless – allegations of doping. Of the five players who ran furthest in Euro 2008, three were members of his Russia squad."

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