Joao Pedro 'sick of' Liam Rosenior meetings but thriving under new Chelsea boss

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Evening Standard

·29 January 2026

Joao Pedro 'sick of' Liam Rosenior meetings but thriving under new Chelsea boss

Blues forward getting back to his best following Rosenior talks

Joao Pedro could be forgiven for parking the modesty and describing his two goals as “brilliant” after Chelsea’s memorable victory at Napoli. They were.

With a drop of the shoulder and a left-foot piledriver from outside the box, he levelled things up to get Chelsea out of the hole they had dug for themselves in the first half. And then with a dart towards goal and a composed pass into the net off his right foot, he gave the Blues just the result they craved.

Chelsea overcame adversity in a match that swung this way and that, ultimately securing a top-eight finish with a 3-2 win and, with it, automatic progression to the Champions League round of 16 with no need for a play-off.

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“Today I scored two brilliant goals - the [most] important thing is the three points,” Joao Pedro said afterwards. The Brazilian is a confidence player who believes his own hype but, at his best, uses that to his advantage.

Joao Pedro showed his quality against Napoli

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It was truly a ‘cometh the hour’ moment in all senses from Joao Pedro, whose thunderous equaliser from range after 60 minutes was the catalyst for Chelsea to gradually take the game away from a tired Napoli team.

At times this season, Joao Pedro’s performances have been criticised, his £60million transfer fee tag a stick used to beat him with.

Some have questioned his commitment to chasing loose balls or running the hard yards, others his goalscoring acumen given that the thinking behind his arrival from Brighton was that he would become Chelsea’s most reliable goalscorer.

His finishing could not be faulted in Naples, though, and neither could his movement. The way he came short to receive, play back to Cole Palmer and then run in behind to receive the resulting through-ball to score his second was reminiscent of his goal at Crystal Palace on Sunday, when he played a one-two with Estevao but again the goal was chiefly made by him running the channel and collecting the ball in behind the defence.

With 11 goals, he is Chelsea’s top scorer in all competitions this term. Having started the campaign so brightly and then faded away, he now has four goals from his last three starts and is enjoying a very welcome mid-season period in form.

Joao Pedro has now scored 11 goals in all competitions for Chelsea this season

AFP via Getty Images

He was Chelsea’s undisputed matchwinner and led from the front.

When interviewed by Standard Sport in September, the 24-year-old spoke about his excitement at finally being able to test himself in the Champions League. He has three goals in the competition already and will be a player his team-mates turn to for attacking inspiration as they embark on the round of 16 and beyond.

“I expected this moment would come,” he said last night when reflecting back on his summer move to Chelsea. “I’d been in England for six years already. I think I’m now doing well. My goals, I try to do my best always to help my team-mates. The coach said to us to be positive.”

Liam Rosenior deserves credit too, of course, for matching up ex-Chelsea head coach Antonio Conte’s back three system and being vindicated, and for selecting Joao Pedro up front when he could easily have felt the physicality of Liam Delap might ruffle feathers in the Napoli defence instead.

“I think I've had very, very good conversations with him already, probably four in my office,” Rosenior said of Joao Pedro afterwards. “I think he's sick of my office,” he joked.

“I've said to him: ‘If you play with intensity, with your quality, the quality comes out’. The two goals are fantastic but the way he held the ball up for the team, the way he sprinted and started that press, the harder you work, the better you are as a player.”

Heeding that advice paid off. This was Rosenior’s best win as head coach, and perhaps Joao Pedro’s best performance in a Chelsea shirt, too.