Still no news yet. I’m tired of refreshing the websites every few minutes. We need something to chew until the announcement is made, right? So, here it is. After a post on ‘who do you want’ now let’s talk about ‘what do you want?’. What are your expectations on the new Chelsea manager. What are those things that he should possess?

Every team represents the ambitions of its manager. If the manager does not care about winning, the team’s mentality follows. If the manager always wants to demolish the opponent, you can see how the team attempts to carry that out. So it quite crucial that the prominent and dominant qualities of the manager work in our favour. Here is a list on what the new manager should have/be:

Strong character: This is first and foremost. A weak character, how much ever knowledgeable, is never going to win the Chelsea dressing room. This is a bunch of champions who have won everything in England. And most of them are pretty strong characters themselves. The new manager should be strong enough to impose himself. in a dressing room like Chelsea, there are too many leaders. If uncontrolled or poorly controlled, all of them could play leader, which is detrimental for the team. There should only be one boss and that should be the manager.

Born winner: Something like JM. It’s fair to say, eveyone plays to win. But it’s also fair to say not everyone wins. The hunger to win should be in the DNA. After the defeat to Barnsley, these players must have been ripped apart to ensure that this does not happen again. If the manager was tougher those series of last minute equalisers would never have occurred. None of these players should look comfortable looking at the manager eye-to-eye after a bad performance. The new manager should be obsessed with winning which should make the team get into this habit of winning. Losing should not be an option. Sustained success is the only only way to achieve the big Chelsea ambition. And the man we get should know how to win, win at all costs and win against all odds.

Solid pedigree: After Avram Grant, now we need someone who will get the job by merit. This is not all that important if there are enough reasons to believe that there is promise and potential. But please, we don’t want another friend or relative of the owner. The problem is, even if there is merit, it is anyway overshadowed by the other factors. That is one thing I’d have against Hiddink. If we want to show that we are a professionally run club, we need to get someone with solid credentials.

Representative image: Like I have mentioned before, Chelsea has a certain image and I love it. There is a huge majority in the media and fans that portray Chelsea is poor light. That itself is an image of Chelsea and I have no problem with it. Yes, we have a billionaire funding us. That’s all right. It’s not worse than the disgusting match fixing disgrace by Jiventus and AC Milan. Also, when English football was ruled by Man Utd and Liverpool (a bit by Arsenal) in the last few decades, Chelsea stormed into that league, thanks to Roman & Jose in equal proportions. A major part of the media is still supporting one of the red teams, and we just gatecrashed out of the blue. In a way, Chelsea has been arrogant too, in the way we’ve gone about buying the players and sacking the managers. I’d love to see these qualities in the manager as well. JM had all of them. He broke the traditional hierarchy, he was young, brash and arrogant. He kind of personified Chelsea. I don’t find anything wrong here. As the song goes . . . we are the Chelsea, f** all the rest . . .

Media Savvy: The manager has to be media savvy. Some might say they are more worried about how the manager does on the pitch. I’m very particular that the manager is very presentable to the media. Surprisingly Grant did quite well in the media but he lacked the swagger. Some people are gifted with their PR qualities (like Ian Holloway, Steve Coppell etc). A confident manager cascades his confidence to his whole team. The media portrayal of the manager helps the profiling of the team as well. John Terry, Frank Lampard, Michael Essien are all fantastic players but I remember how they were profiled by JM to the media. They surely lived up to the hype he created on them. We need a manager who can use media to the best effect.

Extensive experience: This one is not a must. But extensive experience certainly won’t hurt. Someone like Hiddink, Scolari, Lippi etc. The advantage of having such a person as manager is that they are risk free in terms of how the Press treat them. Capello took over England and suddenly you can feel the air of respect. If it was anyone else the Press would be waiting for another funny article or a caricature. They can’t risk that with Capello. He’s managed every big fish that you know of. So, someone with lot of football management experience gives the team an air of respect instantaneously. The mockery of hiring and firing his close friend could be forgotten soon.

Controversy-free: Some feel that the manager should be free of controversies. Well, with high profile comes controversy, in most of the cases. Everywhere, not just in football, characters always draw controversies. Sometimes, being in the news can be healthy but not for every damn thing. I don’t mind if the manager is a freak as long as he knows what he is doing. Eccentricities are not new to football. Who’d not take a flawed genius ahead of a grim dullard?

It’s Monday midnight in Europe. Still no signs of JM signing for Inter Milan. Despite some discouraging news, JM’s delay in signing for Inter Milan, still keeps me hopeful. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to upset if we don’t sign JM. I just hope that we sign a very good manager – Hughes and Moyes have always been my favourites, Rijkaard or Laudrup would also do nicely. Whoever we sign, I hope either they have the most important of the above traits or develop them in week’s time ;-)