Deeper inside Rosenior’s Chelsea sacking: ‘Respect the ball’ origin, ‘strange’ team meeting this week | OneFootball

Liam Rosenior’s training sessions ‘were not as good’ as those of his two predecessors according to a report which dives deeper into his Chelsea demise, including a “respecting the ball” revelation and a ‘strange admission’ in a team meeting this week.

BlueCo announced the club had ‘parted company’ with the former Hull City and Strasbourg boss on Wednesday after losing five consecutive Premier League games without scoring a goal.

With Chelsea now seven points off Liverpool and Champions League qualification in fifth, and with the FA Cup semi-final with Leeds coming on Sunday, Calum McFarlane will return for a second interim stint of the season.

Insiders detailed the 41-year-old’s downfall in reports on Thursday, revealing that players were making jokes about his glasses and his “LinkedIn” language before his criticism after the 3-0 defeat to Brighton made his position ‘untenable’ with the squad “close to mutiny”.

And now The Athletic have put more meat on the bones of his dismissal, claiming that ‘multiple sources say there were reservations from a very early stage about the way he communicated’.

While Rosenior was telling the truth when he revealed the players were involved in the “respecting the ball” nonsense which saw them huddle around the centre circle (and on one occasion Paul Tierney), the report reveals that it was collaborative decision made with player support and development officer Willie Isa.

Alarm bells sounded as Chelsea’s downturn under Rosenior coincided with him getting more time on the training field to get his ideas across and ‘one source close to a senior player said training sessions were not as good as those provided by another former coach, Mauricio Pochettino, as well as Maresca’.

‘Players were struggling to get a grip of what he wanted or understood what he was trying to do’ while another source revealed players saw him ‘more as a motivator than a tactician or a manager’

‘Team spirit slump’ and a ‘vulnerable’ admission

‘The spirit in the group slumped’ which was ‘an increasing source of angst’ in the dressing room, with ‘some players overheard complaining recently that Rosenior was not giving them enough days off’.

There were signs of rifts appearing in the squad over these complaints as ‘one senior player was unimpressed with what he heard and reminded them that the team was on a losing run and this was not the time to be complaining about such things’.

The decision was made to sack Rosenior on Wednesday morning, with interim boss Calum McFarlane looped in on a call with the club hierarchy, with the report claiming ‘the writing was on the wall’ earlier this week.