The ears pricked, the eyes glanced upwards and around, the ballpoints hit the notebooks that little bit harder. Had he just said that? And had he just said it in reference to Chelsea's squad rather than Newcastle's? He had, indeed.

It was yesterday lunchtime at Chester-le-Steet, Newcastle United's training ground: Ruud Gullit was halfway through his weekly pre-match press conference. Seeing a larger than usual turnout, and knowing fully that Chelsea's appearance at St James' Park this afternoon was the reason for it, Gullit had displayed some nimble verbal footwork in dealing with the inevitable questions about his present views on and relationship with the club he once loved so well, but the club which then spurned him.

"It's in the past" . . . "I've already forgotten it" . . . "I'm looking forward now" . . . "I'm not here to prove something" - Gullit came up with them all and for a moment it was as if he was reciting some earache ballad by his beloved Whitney Houston.

It also seemed as though the flashpoint had been sidestepped until Gullit was asked gently to give a summation of his feelings about today's match.

"I'm very calm at this moment," he said. "But I'm very excited also because I will be seeing my players again."

My players? It was at this point that the press's collective eyebrows hit the roof. What would the Newcastle players and fans think about that? What would the Chelsea players think about that? Most of all, what would Gianluca Vialli think about that?

Had the Gullit-Chelsea parting been different, had it been amicable, then yesterday's words could have been interpreted differently. Those two little words could almost have sounded fatherly. But no, last February's parting had been a putsch and the victim had been wounded in a way he had never before experienced.

Yet yesterday, initially, Gullit had appeared in forgiving mood and even said that he will return the conciliatory handshake to be offered by Chelsea's chairman Ken Bates before kick-off today.

It had been assumed that Bates, the architect of Gullit's fall from the Bridge, was the target for Gullit's venom and Gullit has referred to Bates as "the boss of bosses" in the past. Yesterday, though, it was impossible not to come away thinking that Vialli is the man Gullit really resents.

Earlier this week Gullit had said of Chelsea: "I have no hate. I have no feelings of revenge," but yesterday when asked how he thought Vialli was performing in his first job in management, Gullit replied: "I think he is doing exactly what I was trying to do. In the beginning he tried to change to a 4-3-3 formation, but he lost all his games. Then I saw him admitting that my rotation system was good, I think everybody's learnt from that, so perhaps I did my job well."

Somewhere a cat miaowed.

There has been no contact between the two men since February 12th last year, an unsurprising situation but one that is noteworthy because Gullit has remained in touch with some of the Chelsea team, although he stressed he had done so secretly.

After the subtle personality digs, it was a relief to get back to the football. Or so we thought. Gullit has remarked on a number of occasions since his arrival at St James' Park in September that the job at Newcastle "is bigger than at Chelsea" and last Saturday he was left lamenting "a curse" on his attempts to rebuild.

But, having aimed criticism at Alessandro Pistone and Dietmar Hamann for "moaning" to the newspapers, Gullit turned from Newcastle's unpromising league position to Chelsea's championship credentials.

"As everybody knows, things have to be changed here, that's part of my mission," he said. "There have to be new faces. We are not as far on as Chelsea. They have a big advantage, they've been together longer - I signed all of tomorrow's Chelsea players apart from (Marcel) Desailly and (Albert) Ferrer.

"I left a good team there. My ideas were right and they are still practising them. I think they have to go for the title this season and if they don't win it that would be a loss.

"Chelsea are contenders for the title, you cannot hide from that. I was going for the title last year, but I didn't say so. It's easy for Vialli, the players were already there, the system was already there - the rotation system."

Gullit also made a point of reminding everyone that Chelsea lay in second place in the Premiership when he was sacked, the position in which they arrive today.

His famously laid-back demeanour means that Gullit's delivery does not suggest animosity - the opposite, in fact - but these are jaundiced comments about his former club and about Vialli. They reek of a sense of betrayal on Vialli's part and having read them this morning the Italian will take even greater pleasure if he can cause Gullit some embarrassment on the pitch.

That is a likely outcome given the recent form of the two sides, and by five o'clock this evening when the Chelsea distraction has moved on, Gullit will be left addressing only his local Tyneside audience.

It will surely be seen as curious that Newcastle's manager has displayed such public passion for his first love and it once again questions the commitment of a man who signed a two-year contract when the Newcastle directors offered a significantly longer deal to a man who still commutes from Amsterdam.

Then there is the fact that he refers to the Chelsea team as "my players".