Eriksson's 'hard' time

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The former England coach, courted by Chelsea prior to the arrival of Mourinho in June 2004, claims, however, he will have a lot more fun spending Thaksin Shinawatra's ample funds to build a successful team from scratch rather than fine-tuning a juggernaut that, over the last few months at least, appears to have lost its way.

Tough task: Sven Goran Eriksson

With his hastily constructed squad third in the table, four places above Chelsea, Eriksson insists his old friend Grant faces a similarly difficult job attempting to impose his own identity on a club still coming to terms with the sudden departure of the Special One.

"He has changed the team and it will be interesting to see in January," said Eriksson. "I have no idea if Chelsea are interested in other players or not and it's not my business. But a club like Chelsea, Arsenal or Manchester United, I don't think they go out in January to spend a lot of money because they don't need to.

"Maybe I have had a harder job. Chelsea already have an extremely good squad. We did it in a very short time and we needed to buy players if we wanted to compete in the table. Of course, it can't be easy to come after Mourinho, but Avram will have a good time with Chelsea, I've no doubt about that."