Chelsea hatch secret plan to install Hiddink as manager

The Dutchman will not take over at Stamford Bridge before the end of November when Russia's Euro 2008 qualifying campaign is over.

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However, the 60-year-old has already started to put his coaching team in place with Ajax boss Henk ten Cate set to be given a senior coaching role in the next few weeks.

The London Evening Standard reports that Ten Cate has met with Chelsea's technical director Frank Arnesen in his London home for talks over the position on the proviso he will be one of three assistants to work under Hiddink.

The highly-respected Dutch newspaper De Pers today reports Hiddink has already secretly agreed to take charge at Chelsea and that it is only a matter of time before an official announcement is made.

The other two assistants have yet to be appointed, but it appears that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has won his long-standing battle to get Hiddink to Stamford Bridge.

It has been reported that despite the billionaire playing a major role in getting him to coach Russia over the last 14 months, as well as funding his salary, that Abramovich would be unable to use his close ties to get Hiddink to take charge of Chelsea.

Even last week Hiddink denied he had a chance of joining the club, who saw inspirational manager Jose Mourinho leave by mutual consent a few days earlier. He said: "Abramovich asked me 'What do you want?' I told him that right now I want to do nothing else except concentrate on Russia. I want to see this through now and then see what happens."

Russia trail second-placed England in Group E by two points with three games remaining, which includes a match in Moscow against Steve McClaren's men in two weeks.

Hiddink's contract with the Russian Football Federation runs out next year although the Dutchman claimed recently he was going to extend it to 2010 whether they qualified for next year's major tournament or not.

However, it appears the former Real Madrid and PSV Eindhoven coach will take charge at Stamford Bridge instead and bring much comfort to the supporters, who feared that Grant was under-qualified to succeed Mourinho having only managed the Israel national team and club sides Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa.

Ten Cate is regarded as one of the best coaches in football and enjoyed a highly successful spell as Frank Rijkaard's assistant at Barcelona before joining Ajax in the summer of 2006.

A Chelsea statement said: "Avram Grant, as first-team coach, has made it publicly clear several times that he intends to strengthen his back-room team in addition to his assistant coach Steve Clarke.

"One of the scenarios Avram is considering is a team containing a British assistant coach in Steve and a foreign assistant coach, a system the first team are already familiar with."