. : thanks guus : .

Guus Hiddink's five gifts to Chelsea

As he prepares to return to the Russia job after the FA Cup final, it's time to assess what he has done at Stamford Bridge

Under Guus Hiddink, right, Didier Drogba has once again been an integral part of the Chelsea team


1) Brought Didier Drogba back into the fold
The Ivorian was an outsider under Luiz Felipe Scolari, his reputation tarnished by the memory of his dismissal in the Champions League final in Moscow and outbursts that his future lay elsewhere.
He lacked form and fitness when he eventually returned, his state of mind so fragile that he flung a coin back into Burnley's travelling support after scoring in the ­Carling Cup elimination at Stamford Bridge.
Yet under Hiddink his form at least returned. The Barcelona outburst cannot be ignored, but there have been 10 goals in 19 appearances and something approaching his battering-ram best.

2) Improving the players' fitness
Under Scolari, John Terry and Frank Lampard had been moved to complain to the manager that training sessions lacked appropriate intensity. This squad had grown used to the work rate demanded by Jose Mourinho and respond best to such demands.
The Brazilian's approach did not sit easily with them. Yet Hiddink has proved inventive and, just as with the national sides he has coached in recent years, the emphasis has been placed on improving fitness on the assumption that fit bodies allow alert minds. The results have been clear.

3) Eked the best out of Florent Malouda
The French winger was becoming something of an expensive joke figure at the club, his £13.6m price tag rarely justified as he flitted through Scolari's reign mustering hardly a whimper.
Yet ever since the Champions League quarter-final first leg at Liverpool he has been a man possessed. Asked to fill an advanced role on the left, where he can rekindle the ­telepathic ­relationship with Drogba he first developed at Guingamp in France, he has run riot.
There have been three goals in his last five appearances.
Suddenly, he looks the France international Chelsea thought they had signed.

4) Proved Chelsea are not one-trick ponies
Under Scolari, there was no Plan B. Chelsea played 4-3-3 and relied upon their full-backs, Jose Bosingwa and Ashley Cole, to provide the width and forward impetus.
Under Hiddink they have been revolutionised. The return to fitness of Michael Essien and form of Drogba have helped, but would Scolari have ever considered converting Michael Ballack into an anchoring midfielder? Or employing Branislav Ivanovic as a first-choice full-back? Or thrusting Drogba and Nicolas Anelka up front as a pairing?
His deployment of Lampard, one of the few to shine consistently all season, in a free role has also been refreshing.

5) Made Chelsea loved again
Scolari was close on this score, first with his free-flowing attacking football of the autumn and then as he almost dragged the team into complete mediocrity, much to the amusement of the Chelsea-baiters, but Hiddink has won friends wherever he has gone.
The Dutchman's sense of humour has shone through, his reputation acknowledged instantly up and down the Premier League.
At Sunderland on the season's final afternoon, he was applauded by the locals. His players do not have a bad word to say about him.
Chelsea have found a figure who is universally liked and respected, and they are about to lose him back to Russia.