Ruud Gullit on why he labels Chelsea’s last two years as ‘horrible’, the root of Man United’s problems… and Taylor Swift’s NFL takeover

Now and then Ruud Gullit feels the rhythm of time on his back and the need to seize every moment of life.

‘I sit in the gym for half an hour and think, “That was half an hour that I don’t have anymore,” he says, as always with a big grin on his face.

He says he remembers the first single he ever bought — Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” picked up at a record store in Suriname, from where his father emigrated to the Netherlands — and can’t quite feel the same about Taylor Swift, when she, a major new presence in the NFL, sometimes entering the digital world of Mail Sport.

‘I have a subscription. I read the Ny Breaking every day. The only thing I didn’t understand is what does Taylor Swift have to do with the sports pages?’ he asks. “Can you just put it where it belongs so I can read my sport?!”

The NFL has been experiencing a phenomenon it calls “the Swift effect” since the singer started dating Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce last year and started attending games, including February’s Super Bowl. There has been a 20 percent increase in sponsorship for the sport since it arrived on the scene. It’s a new world.

But while that world spins and changes, some fundamental things remain the same – like how to build a successful Chelsea team, which Gullit had certainly done before being sacked by the club’s owner, Ken Bates, while the team were second in the League. 26 years ago.

The club have blown half a billion pounds in just a few years and yet Mauricio Pochettino’s side, who he saw lose in the FA Cup semi-final, have created the best chance they will ever have of beating Manchester City.

“Horrible,” says the 61-year-old of the way his former club has developed over the past two seasons, sitting in ninth place in the Premier League. ‘It’s difficult to buy so many players and make a team out of them. It is almost impossible. And there is a lack of quality. A lack of quality for the money they spend. You have to see more.

‘The fans are devastated and I can understand it because if there was an opportunity for Chelsea to beat City it was in the cup. Because City were broken. Chelsea had so many chances – so many chances to score a goal – and they did nothing. What I saw did not make me happy.

‘It’s the same as at Ajax. They bought twelve players and they were terrible. Lack of quality. Chelsea didn’t lose to City because they missed chances. No. They just didn’t play well. I was impressed. That is the biggest frustration for Chelsea fans. They see good coaches and teams playing incredible football. They want that kind of football. I think they made a big mistake by buying so many players at once.’

And Mauricio Pochettino is not without blame, he says. ‘The manager must always take responsibility. When you take the job, you know that reality in advance.

‘I can’t blame him (Pochettino). Because it’s not easy. But he’s responsible – he is – because he took the job. I don’t know how long it will last.’

Should Pochettino become manager next season? “I think he needs that.”

But should he be? ‘You never know with Chelsea!’

That much is true. The club has had 20 managers in the 26 years since Gullit was sacked and he could be forgiven for a little bitterness given the abysmal standard of football that did not cost Pochettino his job when Bates sacked him the year after leading Chelsea to the top . an FA Cup win. It was their first trophy in 27 years, becoming the first black manager to win a major British trophy.

There are no regrets about not seeing the current levels of cash, Gullit, a Laureus ambassador, insisted ahead of the annual awards event, which highlights how the organization uses sport to help those who are less fortunate. ‘It’s not easy to buy good players. It’s the hardest thing, even if on paper you think it’s a good decision you made.

‘I think I bought a good team. I think I bought the right players. And also mixed them with the English players. For me, Dennis Wise was very important to me. Steve Clarke was very important to me in that team. Mark Hughes – very, very important. So the English players had a huge impact. Graeme Le Saux too.

‘I had these good players who I mixed with foreign players and they learned from the experiences of the Europeans and they got better. Even Dennis, he was a team player. No one thought this could happen and I told him. He was a national team player!’

This kind of logic seems so relevant to the way Chelsea might approach things today, but if there is any consolation for them it is that the pressure cooker is even hotter at Manchester United.

Two of Gullit’s compatriots, Erik ten Hag and Louis van Gaal, have failed to knock United out of the competition in the past ten years.

“I’m not disappointed about that,” he says. ‘I knew it would be a tough job. (Jose) Mourinho didn’t do it. Come on! They had good coaches there, didn’t they?

‘But the players they got there are not the players that City would take, or Liverpool or Arsenal. They were players who were already overseasoned. Casemiro – a bit too spicy. Jonny Evans, over-seasoned. The bad thing for them was that Lisandro Martinez got injured because he was one of the best players.’

How can that club be resolved? “I’m not in charge!” says Gullit. ‘It’s a difficult one. A very difficult one because they are constantly in the spotlight. You have [Paul] Scholes, [Rio] Ferdinand, [Gary] Neville – talking about them every day. Every day! And every time they are on television, everything is quoted.

‘That’s difficult. And I know you want the best for the club, but if you talk about it all the time, your eyes are always on it. Arsenal, less so. Liverpool a little, but not that much. When I see Ny Breaking every day, the first five stories are always about Manchester United! Five six! It is what it is.’

For all of these teams’ problems, Gullit sees what he calls a “New England” in the players his former home country is now developing. Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Cole Palmer fascinate him the most. They have taken the team to a completely different level of ambition than in 1988, when Gullit played for the Oranje in the 3-1 victory at the European Championship that saw Bobby Robson’s team eliminated in the group stages. The Netherlands won that tournament, which took place in West Germany.

“It used to be all about digging in, character and all that,” he says. ‘Players like Glenn Hoddle were too early for English football. You now suddenly have technical players; smaller players who have the opportunity to play.

‘That is the development from England with the foreigners who came in. Sergio Aguero! Little striker! Absolutely not in my days! You had Dion Dublins everywhere! Big boys in the back. That’s all changed, so it’s a different kind of England.’

Yet it is France and host country Germany that he considers tournament favorites.

‘I understand the view that England are favourites, but it’s also incredible that all the English clubs are almost out, isn’t it? A few of them only in the Conference League. (Actually only one, Aston Villa.) You don’t want to play there, do you? The fact that the English are already out of the Champions League is an incredible shock, so the English must do something about that.’

Summer awaits. The anticipation for the tournament is palpable and Gullit becomes rooted in one of the aspects of life that remains fundamentally the same. “The speed of the game may have changed, but the fancy technical requirements are exactly the same,” he says, sending this correspondent off to do something about those Taylor Swift articles.

“No more of those on your pages, okay?!”

The 25e The Laureus World Sports Awards took place on Monday 22 April in Madrid, honoring the leading names in sport from around the world. Visit for more information www.laureus.com