Claudio Ranieri has a successor in mind. Why should he be the only one not to speculate about his replacement? At least he did not waste time on tiresomely familiar candidates like Sven-Goran Eriksson. "There's also my brother," Ranieri confided. "He's 60 years old and he says he wants to start in management. I told him, 'Come to Chelsea.'"
The fixture list inflames the rumours. The Stamford Bridge club play Arsenal for a place in the last four of the Champions League and there will be excitement over a possible vacancy at any rich club featuring at such a level. Ranieri can only hope to persuade his employers that they should be grateful to him for the prominence.
"I am working well," he said. "I think there is no problem with Mr Abramovich. We are in the Champions League quarter-finals and second in the league. What more do you want? We bought 12 new players and a lot of youngsters. I didn't do that just for today. I want to build for the future."
In his stoic phases Ranieri concedes that others may enjoy the benefits of his work. It is still likely that Roman Abramovich, Chelsea's owner, and the chief executive Peter Kenyon will replace him if they can appoint a manager with the record of high-level achievement that Ranieri lacks.
Nonetheless, it would be premature for the Italian to despair. He reminds everyone that he started the season as the bookies' favourite to be sacked. Yet it was Glenn Hoddle and Peter Reid who were forced to leave their jobs while his name is still up on the office door.
It is not simple to find a better candidate who is ready to take over from him. Chelsea may wish to have an elite coach who speaks good English, but if Eriksson prefers to honour his contract with the FA then the club's sheet of paper may stay stubbornly blank each time it tries to draw up a short list.
The language barrier could, for example, block off Ottmar Hitzfeld. Although the Bayern Munich manager claims to have been approached by Chelsea, Ranieri knows how elusive the truth of such stories can be. "Maybe it's agents who say, 'Chelsea want you, do you want to go?' Agents cause a lot of confusion."
Ranieri might be deluding himself if he is absolutely sure that all such stories emerge from agents trying to invent deals in which they can become the well-paid intermediaries. Nonetheless he could be correct in believing that there is still time left in which he can tighten his grip on the job.
He has to prevent his squad from acting as if the games they are about to play are already irrelevant. The report that Claude Makelele wants to leave a country in which he has failed to settle was as much an irritant to Ranieri for its timing as for its content. "If anyone is unhappy, they know they can come to me at the end of the season and I will try to help them," he said.
Ranieri would like others to envisage him as their long-term manager and occasionally claims that he expects to see out a contract that is meant to last until 2007. He needs, as best he can, to deny that the current arrangements at Stamford Bridge are merely provisional.
The slight slackening of public scrutiny of his team since the Premiership defeat by Arsenal on February 21 has been a boon. Left to get on with some relatively dull business, Chelsea have won two away games in the league and knocked Stuttgart out of the Champions League without losing a goal.
The defence is sound enough and it is now up to Ranieri to come up with the potent attacking that has too often eluded Chelsea. This afternoon his team face Fulham and he did not notice the irony in his praise of his opposite number Chris Coleman.
"He has changed some things, but not too much," he said admiringly of the way in which the Welshman took over from Jean Tigana. It was as if Ranieri had forgotten for a second his own fame as meddler-in-chief of Premiership managers. Maybe he just wants to recant.
Arsenal do not worry about surprising opponents when they have the means to devastate them. Ranieri could be coming round to the belief that he would benefit from imitating Arsène Wenger's simplicity. To get the most out of his men, it would make sense to pick them where they do best.
Opponents who aim to bottle up Damien Duff, for example, occasionally find that the manager has done the job for them by fielding him in the congestion behind the attack. If the Irishman is allowed to be a left-winger against Arsenal when the Champions League quarter-final begins on Wednesday, then Chelsea might just get the result that would permit Ranieri to be seen as a success.
