“Over the two legs, they deserved to go through” – Liam Rosenior after Champions League exit | OneFootball

Liam Rosenior spoke with the media following his side’s defeat to PSG in the Champions League last 16.

Rosenior opened by admitting he was hoping for a bit more fight from his team, “six minutes in and another mistake takes the wind out of our sails, then the second goal he’s hit it from 25-yards into the top corner. Once you go two goals down so early, and five goals down on aggregate, it’s a really difficult evening…credit to PSG, their possesion game was really top and over the two legs they deserved to go through.”

The Chelsea boss went on to add “we need to be resilient, we need to make sure we go to Everton with an organisation and a freshness and intesity in our team, we want to be in this competition next season and if we perform how I know we can then we can get there without the individual mistakes that we’re making at the moment.”

Joã Pedro, Enzo Fernández and Cole Palmer were all substituted on the hour mark in the second-leg, with Rosenior explaing that “these players have played over 100 games in 18 months, they’ve had no break…it’s not an excuse, this is a byproduct of the success that the club achieved at the Club World Cup, which is a great thing, but you’re seeing with Reece [James] and other players that if I don’t manage their minutes then their likelihood of getting injured is increased very highly.

“I want us to make sure we’re in this competition next season as a minimum, we’re still fighting for an FA Cup, but I have to make some really difficult decisions that at the time probably don’t look great to be honest, you never want to take off your best players when you’re five goals down in a tie, but I want to make the right decisions for the football club in the long-term as well.”

Speaking on how close his side actually came, Rosenior said “this is football and moments can change the flow of a game, two and a quarter games ago we were away in Paris, coming off the back of Aston Villa, a very good performance, 2-2 in the game but we don’t take care of the moments and we switch off. What I have to do is ensure that we get that back on track, and that comes from not making mistakes or errors.”

This was Chelsea’s first knockout tie in the Champions League for three years, but the 41-year-old is confident fans won’t have to wait that long for another. “It’s a fantastic compeition, and it’s a competition this club deserves to be in and deserves to compete in. My job along with the club and the players, is to make sure we’re there every year competing for trophies.”

This is just Rosenior’s third job in management and he admitted that he is still “learning all the time, what I’m learning is that in every moment you have to have players that you can rely on to make correct decisions defensively and not switch off, but also they were clinical in both games…that’s the level and we need to make sure we get there.”

He went on to speak about his current relationship with the fans who did not seem best pleased this evening with Rosenior’s choice of substitutions and also chanted the name of former owner Roman Abramovich. “I think it’s two ways, this is a fantastic football club where the fans want success instantly and rightly so for the size of the club. I have to say, I understand because of the size of the aggregate scoreline why fans are frustrated, they want us to win, so I completely get it.

I also want to make them happy and give them the night’s they deserve, that’s not just me, but us a group and as a team, it was a really difficult one to take because of the manner in which we went out this evening.”

Rosenior rounded off by speaking about Trevoh Chalobah who was stretchered off in the final minutes of the game. “He was really worried, I’ve just checked with the medical team, we are hoping and praying that it’s not as bad as we first feared.” Speaking on Reece James’ injury, Rosenior said “I’m waiting for the full results of his scan, hopefully he’s back sooner rather than later.”