THE thing about Chelsea's new manager Guus Hiddink is that you never quite know what he's going to do next.

From his man-management to his tactics to his training-ground routines, the Dutchman keeps everyone guessing - his players, the fans and the opponents.

And tomorrow will be no different as he prepares the Blues for his first game in charge against Aston Villa.

The one thing the fans can count on by now - and I know this from his time spent coaching Australia - is that each move is successful.

Whether you believe the hype around Hiddink doesn't really matter. He does, but crucially he has a habit of making players around him buy into it too.

His dismissal and then recall of Edgar Davids when Holland coach in the mid-90s is well documented and he demands high levels of discipline.

But the Dutch players of that squad say that incident also taught him to analyse the minds as much as the techniques of every player he coaches. He wants thinkers, not blind devotees, which is good news for Chelsea as their post-Mourinho squad are brimming with forthright characters.

When Hiddink was offered the Australian job in 2005 he insisted that the existing assistant coach, Graham Arnold, fly to Europe and brief him on every player before he accepted. That squad still talks of the way he gave them a belief that they could end Australia's 32-year exile from the World Cup.

Tim Cahill, for instance, was utterly despondent when told he wouldn't start in the qualifying play-off with Uruguay. So Hiddink challenged him to a one-on-one competition at training to hit the bar from 25 yards out, with the winner getting a decent bottle of red. Conveniently or not, Hiddink lost and paid up. The spring was back in Cahill's step.

Where Mark Viduka never seemed that bothered for Australia, Hiddink surprised everyone by making him captain - in effect putting a man often accused of not coming to the party in charge of the invitations.

Viduka was galvanized and has never worked harder.

Yet no one will be immune to what is a scorching blowtorch when Hiddink isn't happy. On a high after beating Greece in a World Cup warm-up in May 2006, the Socceroos went to Holland for a training camp - and Hiddink smashed them into the ground, inflicting double two-hour sessions every day for 10 days.

Viduka described it as like going to war and certainly Hiddink was on the march - berating Cahill with expletives, mocking Viduka's attempts to close down defenders.

It was, and he is, ruthless - he went on to drop goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer for the final group game with Croatia, because No2 Zeljko Kalac was taller and spoke Croatian.

That particular move failed but generally his meticulous levels of preparation mean he is unlikely to buckle under the twin challenges of Russia and Chelsea.

Hiddink is a highly-effective delegator to the extent his Dutch colleagues call him "The Helicopter", for what they see as an ability to hover above the fray, thinking of every detail but trusting his assistants to execute the plans.

The way he handled the Australia-PSV Eindhoven split was to hold a weekly teleconference with Arnold in Sydney, Johan Neeskens roving around Europe and himself in Holland, plus nervous minions from the Australian FA. His two assistants gave scouting reports and Hiddink fired off demands for DVDs, reports, statistics, then summoned the players to Holland to see them in the flesh.

But woe betide any official who doesn't have the answer to a question, or worse, fails to meet his demands.

There is an undeniable hauteur about a man who well knows his value in the game and suffers no fools gladly - especially junior members of staff. After Italy had knocked out Australia with a dubious penalty in 2006, he set up court in the bar of the team hotel, smoking expensive cigars and pouring equally costly red wine. It was an invitation-only gathering.

How, though, will he cope with the increased scrutiny of a job in the Premier League? In 2006 he was interested in the England job but recoiled when journalists began knocking on the door of his elderly father in a Dutch village.

"I don't need this s**t," he said.