Guus Hiddink was asked about a number of issues at Friday’s news conference ahead of the trip to Aston Villa. Here’s a round-up of what the Chelsea interim boss had to say.
On the fitness of Eden Hazard and Diego Costa
“I will talk to the medical staff but he [Hazard] is not available for now. He’s on the pitch, but with the physio. He’s outside the group.
“Costa trained very well the past week, he was very ambitious in training. He’s not injured any more.”
On Alexandre Pato
“Whether he will be actively involved [against Villa], we’ll see on Saturday. But we have now eight games coming up and there’s not much to win, to be honest, for Chelsea anymore. I don’t give any player a guarantee, but there might be some time for experiments.
“I tried to make a fair judgement and give the others who are knocking on the door, like Traore, the opportunities as well. But we have eight games to go, there might be some options.”
On reports John Terry spoke to Roy Hodgson about returning to the England side
“I think it’s a little bit overvalued this ‘whether they had a conversation, yes or no’. But I think it was no issue for either of them. John is doing his job for Chelsea and decided already two or three years ago not to be available anymore for England, whatever the reason might be.”
On whether Terry deserves a new contract
“That’s not up to me at this moment. In the time coming up, you should ask the directors, and of course John has his own opinion about this. It’s a little bit early for me to give a judgement about it. He is, and will be, a legend in this club but also he is and will be a leader. Regarding his near future, it’s difficult for me to give a judgement.”
On whether Terry could cut it in management
“In some players, not just here but in other clubs as well, you see while they are playing that they might be managers inside already. You see that most of the time in the midfield positions or in the centre-back positions, these guys are already leaders in the team.
“I like always as a manager to have players who can execute your gameplan on the pitch. Sometimes we managers think we can manipulate any second of the game, which is not true. You need, in my opinion, the tactical, strategic players and he can be one of them.
“I’ve had in my own career some examples of that, [players] who are now good managers. I had, in my first spell at PSV Eindhoven, Ronald Koeman [the Southampton manager] – you could see he was tactically very strong, a leader. [Watford boss] Quique Sanchez Flores I had in Valencia.”
On whether he sees Terry as a future Chelsea boss
“Not in one or two years but of course if he gets the experience. Most of the time it’s good to go and be the first assistant or second assistant and have the experience from the other side.
“Many players think they can do it overnight – I doubt that. I think the best thing is to get the practice and the experience to be not one of the 23 [players] but go on the other side and have the experience of the managers – how to deal with training, how to deal with man-management, how to deal with a lot of things you have to deal with.”
On comments made by Thibaut Courtois that suggested he could leave Chelsea
“I haven’t read it but I think formally he’s under contract. What I know from him, he and his family like to be in London and at the club. It’s difficult to say and react on what has been said, or what has been translated or mistranslated.
“I always like to give a comment when I have talked about an issue [with a player] which might be a little bit tricky. I like to have also the opinion of the player as well because sometimes things can be miscommunicated and then you get a lot of spin-off, which is not meant to be like this.
“I think in this case, knowing him a bit, I’d like to talk to him. But I don’t want to overvalue the comments that he made.”
On the fitness of players coming back from international duty
“We have all the players coming in in the past days. Today came in Oscar, Traore and Willian, one day before the [Villa] game. So we’ll see how they are in their fitness and their freshness, after the long journey. We’ll see if they are available on Saturday.”
On whether managerless Villa can pose a threat
“I expect that . I saw part of the last game from Aston Villa, with the old manager. It was the last game before the break, the away game at Swansea. There, the team looked very fresh and they were playing with a lot of ambition.
“Even now, when there’s a change, there’s automatically always a reaction so we can expect an entertaining game I think.”
On Chelsea’s simple schedule of eight games in eight weeks
“I would have preferred to be very committed in getting the players fresh every three days, which would have meant we were in the FA Cup and Champions League as well.
“It’s nice to work on a daily basis on the [training] pitch, but to be honest I would have liked to have been breaking my mind how to play, who to play, can we get everyone fit and fresh etc.”
On Johan Cruyff
“[He was] in the top three, top four of players in his way of playing. I had the luck to play against him a few times, I also had a lot of luck to have him in my spell in Spain [as manager] to have our encounters. But also, proudly, I had several meetings with him.
“He renewed the way of playing and he also renewed the way of thinking about football for managers. On top of that, he was a very relaxed, very accessible person. Not just for people who are in the business. When big big names are approached by, let’s say, unknown people, some are at a distance. He always had his words and he was accessible for everyone.”
This post was last modified on 02/04/2016