Harry Redknapp: Guus Hiddink can repair Chelsea mess with another FA Cup success

Silver service: Guus Hiddink guided Chelsea to FA Cup success when interim boss in 2009
(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Harry Redknapp7 January 2016

Chelsea should go all guns blazing to win the FA Cup under Guus Hiddink again. He won it during his first spell as interim manager in 2009 and should aim to repeat the feat.

They are in a precarious position in the Premier League table but often a good cup run can help with that.

It did with my Portsmouth team in 2008. After winning our third-round game at Ipswich, we only lost four League games between January and mid-April.

Okay, the team faltered a bit after the semi-final but we recovered to beat Cardiff in the final and the point is the momentum in the second half of the season can help Chelsea recover from the mess they are in at the moment.

Hiddink will have an affinity with the competition having won it before and although these Chelsea players are used to winning bigger prizes, an FA Cup run will help bring the dressing room back together.

Player Ratings: Crystal Palace vs Chelsea

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The fans will want it, too. Chelsea have had a lot of recent success in the competition — with four wins since 2007 — and elsewhere but after such a horrible season for their supporters, they will be grateful of a day out and something to cheer.

I never understand why mid-table teams don’t also go for it. You’ll see a lot of Premier League teams field weakened sides in this weekend’s third round and all they are doing is asking to get beaten.

At the start of the year, there are four or five teams who can win the League and we all know who they are. So you have a chance to win two other competitions. When I was young, the FA Cup Final was the big day of the year but now they chuck the kids out into the competition.

For the sides at the bottom, their approach is different because the rewards for staying in the top flight are so great that they see the FA Cup as an unwelcome distraction. A cup run to the semi-finals, say, will be forgotten by a club board at the end of the year if they have been relegated. A full round of midweek League games immediately following these cup matches won’t help, either.

If there was a free week, then it would be less of a decision for some managers but coming off the back of such a gruelling Christmas period, those clubs with smaller squads will want to get a breather into some players before it all starts again.

Clubs at the top might not want to risk more injuries, too — look at what happened to Liverpool in Tuesday’s Capital One Cup semi-final, first-leg win at Stoke, where they lost two more players — but for those in the middle, they have no excuse.

West Brom, Stoke, Southampton — these sides who aren’t going to get in the top six and aren’t going to go down — should give themselves something to play for.

They always tend to mess around with their teams but why? Aren’t you in the game to try to win things?

It is not impossible for Chelsea to finish in the top four — they are 13 points behind Tottenham — but there is a very long way to go and there were flashes of the old Blues in Sunday’s 3-0 win at Crystal Palace — but football is so often about confidence and a cup run can give you that.

Chelsea need to rediscover the habit of winning and will surely want to put things right against Scunthorpe after losing against lower League opposition — Bradford — at home last season.

Hiddink has made a positive start there and a cup run can only help aid Chelsea’s recovery.

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