Chelsea need Rafa Benitez's tactical genius to clean up mess created by Andre Villas-Boas

In many ways, what he did a year later was more impressive. A new look squad collected 82 points and won the FA Cup, beating Mourinho’s most formidable Chelsea in the semi-final again.

It only started to go wrong after the third year – the 2007 Champions League final - when his right hand man, Ayesteran, followed other previous close confidants (who’d also triumphed with Benitez at Valencia) out the door. Ironically, one of the reasons they fell out is because Benitez thought Ayesteran wanted to go to Chelsea. If the pair could be reunited now, a partnership which has echoes of the Brian Clough-Peter Taylor partnership, would transform Chelsea into potential Premier League winners again.

Bereft of sound counsel, Benitez became more obsessed with politics than football in his latter years at Anfield. Although he fought Manchester United for the title in 2009, it was an erratic, unstable period.

A lot of that, it must be said, wasn’t his fault. The ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett took its toll on everyone at Liverpool. A fair proportion of it undoubtedly was down the Benitez, however, and for his next employers’ sake he must have come to realise the mistakes as he opened the doors of his Wirral home to the media in an effort to alter perceptions. At the very least, he must have often wondered how on earth he’d allowed circumstances to develop where he could lose his job to Roy Hodgson.

If he gets the call, Benitez is clever and pragmatic enough to know he will need to revert to his former self to succeed at Chelsea. He’ll need to work with senior players rather than alienate them like Villas-Boas has done. John Terry, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba, in the short-term at least, will need to be allies if an arrangement is to become permanent.

Benitez has more chance of anyone of repairing Fernando Torres. Their relationship deteroriated at Anfield too in the final season, but there’ll be mutual benefit in forgetting that to revive each others’ career.

As a short-term fix, Benitez and Chelsea can work. Longer-term, for any manager to succeed at Stamford Bridge, there will come a point where the Terrys, Lampards and Drogbas will have to be subservient to the will of the manager.

Benitez would relish that battle too, and the political dynamic between the manager, dressing room and owner would be as enthralling – and ultimately possibly as debilitating - to watch in west London as it was on Merseyside.