GUUS HIDDINK has thrown a spanner in the works over who will be the next permanent Chelsea boss.
The smart money is that Carlo Ancelotti will be the next holding forth at Stamford Bridge, but Hiddink has opened up the possibility he may stay with the Blues.
Ancelotti has coached AC Milan for the last seven years, but set tongues wagging this week with when he said: "I will not coach Milan for ever ... anything is possible."
But it's comments from the caretaker boss at the Bridge that will probably impress Blues' fans more.
"My contract with Russia expires at the period of 2010 World Cup," said Hiddink. "But we also said that if we don't qualify with Russia, and the Russian Federation likes to go in a different direction or strategy - then we have to talk about how to end the contract.
"We put a clause in there saying that, if Russia do not qualify, we can talk about leaving at the end of the qualification stage."
The main question is whether Chelsea can afford to wait until the November culmination of Russia's qualifying campaign to find out if they can keep Hiddink.
Certainly, most Blues fans would be keen to keep him, despite Chelsea's slip-up last weekend at White Hart Lane. He has done a great deal in a short space of time, turning Luiz Felipe Scolari's apparently clueless charges into a team that can close-down and win matches.
