The one issue Liam Rosenior must fix immediately at Chelsea | OneFootball

Blues boss makes brutal assessment after dropping more points

Try as he might to hide it, Liam Rosenior could not help but show his hand after Chelsea let slip their lead and were held by Burnley.

Flemming came from nowhere to get a march on the Chelsea defence and stamp a bullet header past Robert Sanchez from a James Ward-Prowse corner, denying the hosts all three points in the 93rd minute.

“An assignment was missed, a marking assignment wasn't done,” Rosenior couldn’t help but admit. “Flemming, we know, is their best header of the ball. And there was a player who I won't [name who failed to mark him].”

Rosenior insisted he was “not here to throw players under the bus” but repeated: “There was a player we assigned that duty to who marked the wrong player.”

Zian Flemming celebrates his stoppage-time goal for Burnley

Ben Whitley/PA Wire

Chelsea’s frustrated head coach said he would “deal with it in the week” in-house, and indeed he needs to, because there was a feeling of déjà vu about the way Chelsea invited Burnley back in through an individual error. The previous league match, against lowly Leeds, was a thoroughly dominant display tarnished by shipping two poor goals in a seven-minute period and again a case where the Chelsea players left the field without victory and unsure quite how they'd managed it.

Rosenior’s brutal assessment on Saturday that his team had “set fire to four points from two home games” summed up as well as anyone the feeling of disappointment within the camp. It made it 19 points Chelsea have dropped from winning positions in the Premier League this season, and a league-high 17 of those have come at home at Stamford Bridge.

Individual errors and lapses in concentration have been the one negative thread woven through Rosenior’s first 12 matches in charge.

The failed “assignment” from Burnley’s late corner followed Wesley Fofana’s second yellow card for a frankly crazy challenge to make by a player already on a booking. His dismissal gave Burnley a man advantage late on and he misses Arsenal next week as a result, costly for the team, not just personally.

Moises Caicedo, excellent against Burnley, conceded a needless penalty against Leeds which let them back into the game when down and out and Chelsea cruising to a routine 2-0 win. The calamitous defensive mix-up that then gifted Leeds their second was even poorer still.

Sanchez went flapping around to no avail in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg loss to Arsenal, and poor marking handed both Crystal Palace and Wolves totally avoidable consolation goals in Chelsea’s recent league wins away to both.

Rosenior urges on his players during Chelsea’s draw with Burnley

Action Images via Reuters

On those occasions, they were merely rough edges to otherwise important wins, but against Arsenal, Leeds and Burnley, unforced errors saw Chelsea pay a higher price.

They are the one thing holding Rosenior’s Chelsea back right now. All teams make errors, in every game, but individual losses of concentration have become a common occurrence for the Blues. And in a race for the Champions League that is really hotting up, all the more crucial to address them internally and cut them out immediately.

“We've conceded goals from moments of lack of concentration, lack of accountability,” Rosenior lamented. “If we want to maximise the potential, which I know is there, we have to address that very quickly.”

Trying to find the right words to assess a second match in a row which had left him feeling more than somewhat bemused, the 41-year-old explained what he had discovered about his team against Burnley that he hadn’t already known.

“I learned that for us to maximise the potential of this group, which is very high, we need players who in key moments can see things through and make sure they make the right professional decisions.”

On that front at least, his team are not there yet.