Ruud Gullit on why he labels Chelsea's last two years as 'horrible'

Occasionally, Ruud Gullit feels the beat of time on his back these days and the need to seize life's every moment.

'I'll spend half an hour in the gym and think "that was half an hour that I no longer have left",' he relates, a huge grin playing on his face as always.

He says he remembers the first single he ever bought - Marvin Gaye's 'Let's Get It On', picked up from a record shop in Suriname, from where his father emigrated to the Netherlands - and can't quite feel the same about Taylor Swift, when she, a significant new presence in NFL, sometimes gravitates into Mail Sport's digital realm.

'I have a subscription. I read the Daily Mail every day. The only thing that I didn't understand is what Taylor Swift has to do with the sports pages?' he asks. 'Can you just put it where it belongs and I can read my sport?!!'

NFL has actually experienced a phenomenon it's calling 'the Swift Effect' since the singer started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce last year and became a presence at games, including February's Super Bowl. There's been a 20 per cent increase in sponsorship for the sport since she's been a presence on its scene. It's a new world.

But as that world turns and changes, some of the fundamentals remain the same - like how to build a successful Chelsea team, which Gullit had certainly done before he was sacked by the club's owner, Ken Bates, with the team second in the league, 26 years ago.

The club have splashed half a billion pounds in a few years and yet the Mauricio Pochettino side he saw lose in the FA Cup semi-final blew the best chance they will have to beat Manchester City.

'Horrible,' the 61-year-old says of the way that his old club have unspooled in the past two seasons, lying ninth in the