So who’s going to be the next Chelsea boss, Mourinho or Guardiola?

According to early reports, Chelsea have set the bar really, really high in their search for a new manager, targeting none other than Barca boss Pep Guardiola and the current favourite to replace Andre Villas-Boas, Jose Mourinho.

The sacking of the former coach Villas-Boas was as inevitable as night following day after he presided over a string of awful results and a dressing room that was not exactly wholly united behind the young manager.

Although the club have said that Roberto di Matteo will serve as the caretaker boss until the end of the season, attention has already turned to whose bum will be warming the manager’s hotseat in the Chelsea dugout.

Early suggestions that Rafa Benitez would be offered a temporary contract have gone cold and it has been hinted that Abramovich will now turn his attention to the big two in Spain, with the Russian billionaire obviously eager to get a man of experience rather than waste in the region of £50 million as he did on Villas-Boas.

Abramovich and Mourinho have history of course, and didn’t always see eye to eye during José’s time at Chelsea, but the fact that Mourinho is believed to be eyeing a move away from the immense pressures of managing Real Madrid might give this rumour a little credence.

The Special One is on record as saying how much he’d love to return to England one day and was recently spotted checking out properties in the London area, sparking further rumours that he could return sooner rather than later.

As for Guardiola, despite the fact that he presides over perhaps the greatest club team ever seen and is spoiled by success after success at Barcelona, he has yet to agree a new contract at the Catalan giants and it has been suggested that he is eager to spread his managerial wings abroad at some stage.

Whether either manager would be prepared to take over a club under the control of a man who is so obviously trigger happy remains to be seen, but if Abramovich isn’t satisfied with either of those two, it’s safe to assume he never will be.