Game after game, Chelsea's interim boss told us it would soon be time to give youth a chance.

Right up until the final match of the season, when he was forced to admit that the youngsters simply weren't ready for the big stage.

One of the big lost opportunities this season, in the eyes of many, has been the failure of Guus Hiddink to offer development chances to Chelsea's highly successful junior stars, in this dead-end campaign.

Now it is to that same man that Chelsea are set to turn. To try and offer some form of transition for the constant crop of young talent, from world beating teen to first team.

Given that record, is Hiddink really the right man to do that? Chelsea certainly seem to think so.

The club has possibly the world's most successful academy set-up – at least in terms of finding and promoting the very best of youth talent.

The trophy cupboard says it all: four out of the last five FA Youth Cups; two consecutive UEFA Youth Leagues.

But, as we all know, the conversion rate of those high performing 16 to 19-year-olds is non-existent.

The club knows they have a problem here.

In need of help? Chelsea technical director Michael Emenalo looks on

Internally, they seem to have the very highest regard for what Neil Bath has done with the academy set-up.

But there also seems to be an acceptance that the loan system is not really working, and the constant rotation of first-team managers is not helping.

That latter issue is something that seems unlikely to change. Chelsea now deal exclusively in first team coaches, who have control over only the small group who battle for Premier League points.

As technical director, Michael Emenalo oversees all of that, however there is clearly the need for something else – a process, network or individual – to build a bridge between potential and achievement.

Emenalo, though highly thought of in Chelsea's highest echelons for the structures he has imposed and the talent he has found, lacks something significant in his CV – first-team management experience.

And that appears to be where Hiddink will fit into this new structure.

He will work between Bath and first team coach Antonio Conte to help deliver Chelsea's Premier League stars of the future.

With his knowledge and experience of Chelsea's first team set-up, the theory is he will be able to see what is needed for young players to progress.

The criticism that he never gave youth a chance while in charge is not entirely fair. Youngsters such as Tammy Abraham, Fikayo Tomori and Jake Clarke-Salter were all given minutes on his watch.

Chelsea's UEFA Youth League triumph in pictures:

Though he was clear that they weren't quite ready for more than that.

Like Jose Mourinho before him, he gave first team training time to youth team players, but his primary focus as manager had to be on the next matchday.

Hiddink, with 50 year's experience in the game, will have the gravitas to approach the Chelsea manager and suggest roles for young players once they are at the right level.

It is not expected that the 69-year-old will be sat in an office at Cobham all day every day doing this, but that his role will be on an advisory basis.

That, in itself, is nothing new. Roman Abramovich has used Hiddink for years as a football advisor, and the Dutchman never really left the payroll after his first departure from the club back in 2009.

What will change here is his focus, with youth development being the priority.

That appears to be the grand theory, anyway. The proof of the pudding, as always, will be in the eating.

But there is one other obvious attraction, to Abramovich, of keeping Hiddink on the staff – and it is the elephant in the room.

There is nobody else in the club who has Premier League management experience.

And who knows when he might need to call on that again.

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Will Guus Hiddink help Chelsea develop youngsters?