So let’s get this straight. The new manager of Chelsea must be a strong man, capable of seizing back a dressing-room lost by Avram Grant. Yet he must also be malleable enough to accommodate the whims of the owner, Roman Abramovich.

He must be capable of producing football that will set the world alight while, at the same time, winning just about every game he contests. Two European Cups inside a decade, as Peter Kenyon once declared as Chelsea’s goal, even though it took Manchester United 40 years.

The new man must be strong-willed and determined but he must also be diplomatic enough to handle all the other courtiers, such as Frank Arnesen, who have their own hotline to the boss. And he must be more charismatic than Grant (which, admittedly, should not be difficult) without being so dangerous that he leaves a trail of destruction like José Mourinho.

Every club would love this man, whoever he is. The difference with Chelsea is that they believe he is out there waiting for the call. They believe that they can have it all because they are the richest club in the world. It is a presumption that is at the heart of everything at Stamford Bridge.

It is the same presumption that has Fernando Torres at the top of their summer shopping list, along with Kaká and Robinho, for whom it must be news that they are wasting their careers at AC Milan and Real Madrid respectively.

Strange. It was only a few weeks ago, in the days when Grant naively assumed that results alone would keep him in the job, that the former Chelsea first-team coach explained to a few of us over dinner how the club had adopted a long-term strategy, how they had flooded South America with scouts and how they were going to build a team for the future rather than just throw money at proven talent. This long-term strategy has lasted about six weeks.

You can write all this yet still, flying back from the Champions League final last week, a Chelsea fan perched in a neighbouring seat asked why the media seemed biased against his club, why he could detect a warmth towards Manchester United that would have been unthinkable five years ago. He wanted to know why millions of ABUs (Anyone But United) had morphed into ABCs.

He refused to accept then what can only be repeated now — that an air of entitlement emanates from the top at Chelsea that is all too readily peddled by employees such as Kenyon. It is the presumption that they will win several European Cups, that they will become the most powerful club in the world, that they can expect to buy Torres from Liverpool for £50 million.

There is nothing wrong with ambition or wealth, Chelsea cry. Which is true. But why add to the clutter of grasping, bullying, rapacious football clubs when Abramovich had the opportunity to create so much more?

On the pitch, they have bought some great players, contested some memorable matches, but the team would never be described as beautiful. Off it they have missed plenty of chances to blaze a trail, to be a force for good.

How uplifting it might have been, for example, had Chelsea turned over the front of their shirts to a charitable cause rather than helping Samsung to sell mobile phones. After all, what is another few million in debt? Instead it is Aston Villa who are about to show that there is more to football than just a balance sheet by carrying the name of a local hospice.

Chelsea will say that they do their bit for charitable causes, that they reach out into the community and that they are working towards long-term sustainability. It may even be true, but the whole construction is still built around the need for one man to clasp his hands to the European Cup, and we are not talking about John Terry.

The need to keep Abramovich interested in that quest before he starts spending even less time at football and even more with his girlfriend makes it likely that they will appoint an experienced foreign manager on a brief to bring the European Cup in double-quick time. Round up the usual suspects such as Luiz Felipe Scolari and Guus Hiddink.

But the interesting development at Stamford Bridge is the word of support, believed to be from Kenyon’s office, for Mark Hughes. He is no one’s idea of the finished article as a manager, not even close, but that may be exactly what is so attractive about him, particularly to Kenyon, whose job is to rid the world of ABCs.

To appoint a young British manager would show Chelsea trying to build something for themselves rather than taking short-cuts and paying through the nose for other clubs’ players or ideas. Given the respect for Hughes, his appointment might even buy Chelsea time with the media.

As manager of Wales, Hughes turned a team that had been an embarrassment and carried them to within a whisker of a leading tournament, losing only in a play-off for Euro 2004.

Three consecutive top-ten finishes at Blackburn Rovers, while snapping up shrewd bargains such as Benni McCarthy and Roque Santa Cruz, provide further evidence of real promise. Hughes would not be intimidated by working with big names, which is one of the concerns about David Moyes, his rival as the best of British.

The problem for Kenyon in selling the idea to the owner is less Hughes’s track record than the requirement to show patience to a manager who is still learning his trade.

Abramovich wants the European Cup in the same way he wanted the Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon paintings he purchased for £60 million earlier this month — not for the art, nor for the journey of discovery, but purely for the rush that comes with acquisition.