Chelsea: an Impossible Job for Anyone Serious | OneFootball

Chelsea parting ways with a head coach on New Year’s Day may feel novel, but it is entirely on-brand for a club seemingly sustained by chaos.

So Long, Enzo

Enzo Maresca is the latest casualty, reportedly making his New Year’s resolution a resignation after the now-infamous “48 hours” comments opened the door to endless theories. We could spend hours debating whether Maresca was good enough for Chelsea — whether his tactics were sufficient, his character strong enough, his shoulders broad enough.

But those questions feel increasingly reductive within a system that repeatedly explodes in the same fashion while never truly changing. The only immovable constant at Clearlake’s Chelsea is the architects themselves. Failure, rather than prompting accountability, appears to grant them further empowerment.

Maresca may have accelerated his own exit, but the similarities to the departures of Mauricio Pochettino and Thomas Tuchel would be foolish to ignore.

Clearlake and the sporting directors do not simply oversee — they interfere. They are the Premier League’s most committed micro-managers, reportedly dictating style of play and even rotation policy. Coaches may be offered a glimpse into recruitment, but they remain passengers. Approval is required, not initiative.

And Hello, Liam

Liam Rosenior may be a talented coach with progressive ideas. He may even succeed where Maresca faltered. But fundamentally, he is another interchangeable figure beneath the authority of the directors and Behdad Eghbali. He will likely inherit sub-par signings bought for enormous fees. Promising players may be sold without his consent.

If the squad requires urgent improvement, or a key injury demands decisive action, inaction will likely follow. Should he dare to voice frustration publicly, he will be swiftly sacrificed.

No one comes above the project — whatever that project actually is. In practice, it appears to be little more than spending billions to soothe fragile egos while empowering incompetence.

As Maresca demonstrated in 2025, this flawed system can still produce short bursts of progress. But “papering over the cracks” has rarely felt more appropriate. Even inexperienced coaches quickly lose patience. There is little reason to believe Rosenior would fare differently.

Indeed, the working environment is so dysfunctional that even elite coaching minds would hesitate to enter it. This exposes the central flaw of Eghbali’s vision: the belief that he and his inner circle are right, and everyone else is wrong.

Chelsea on the Crux

The consequences will soon become tangible. Failure to maintain Champions League football, the continued absence of a front-of-shirt sponsor, and rivals pulling away will all compound. Top players will agitate to leave. Better players will look elsewhere. Chelsea’s baseline level of competitiveness will erode.

History offers clear warnings. By 2026, it will be 13 years since Manchester United last won a Premier League title — a scenario few imagined when Sir Alex Ferguson departed. Liverpool endured years of decline under Hicks and Gillette. Arsenal faced sustained fan revolt during their own wilderness period.

The assumption that failure is acceptable because success will inevitably return is arrogance. Reaching the top requires consistently good decision-making. It requires elite football people, properly empowered within a coherent, driven environment.

Above all, it requires humility from wealthy owners. The understanding that there are people within the game smarter than them, and the willingness to trust those people.

At Chelsea, either Eghbali has hired the wrong experts, or he believes himself smarter than all of them combined.

At this point, he may as well sit in the dugout and pick the team himself. The coaches he employs already seem to be little more than an inconvenience.

You can follow my coverage of Chelsea on YouTube at SonOfChelsea. More written coverage of the club on Substack. Follow me on X for more thoughts, along with listening to the podcast.