Liam Rosenior gets started as Chelsea boss - with one immediate problem to fix | OneFootball

New coach has a clear priority after watching the defeat to Fulham

It’s just as well Liam Rosenior penned a contract so long that he could still be at Stamford Bridge in 2032. He might need that much time to right some of the wrongs Chelsea committed in front of his eyes at Craven Cottage.

Liam Rosenior arrives with the Chelsea team at Craven Cottage

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It felt strange how involved Rosenior was in the whole occasion given Chelsea’s Under-21s head coach Calum McFarlane again took temporary charge from the dugout just as he had done against Manchester City. Rosenior arrived on the team bus and even conducted a pre-match interview on Sky Sports yet sat in the stands with Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali, appearing to kick every ball as his new side fell to a painful west London derby defeat that leaves them with just one win from their past nine league matches.

Rosenior’s first training session took place on Thursday morning, as they look to begin as they mean to go on during his tenure when they face Charlton in the FA Cup third round on Saturday.

It seems unlikely Cole Palmer will be given many, if any, minutes against Charlton, but Rosenior needs to place getting the best out of Palmer right near the top of his list of priorities for his tenure.

Palmer still does not look fully match-sharp, and while he was marginally better in the second half when Fulham began to leave gaps, he was again subdued, underwhelming, more than a little off the pace. Even allowing for his injury woes, 2025 was not such a good year for Palmer individually. He and Rosenior must work together to ensure 2026, a World Cup year, proves far more fruitful.

Marc Cucurella is sent off - Chelsea’s seventh red this season

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Rosenior won’t have learnt about Chelsea’s ill-discipline because he surely knew about it already — but he can see it for himself now.

Marc Cucurella had to stay with Harry Wilson as the last man, but he was too handsy, overzealous, and got himself sent off for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity, and as red cards early in a match tend to do, his dismissal changed the course of the game. It was Chelsea's seventh red this season.

Just as vexing for the supporters who had made their shortest commute of the season to be there at Craven Cottage will have been the sight of Enzo Fernandez, Tosin Adarabioyo and Palmer all needlessly remonstrating with referee Peter Bankes in the aftermath of the red. And so all three saw yellow. The argument that Chelsea do not have a discipline problem they need to sort out is, by this point, a non-starter.

Were Chelsea defensively frail? Well, to a point. The goals they conceded to Raul Jimenez and Wilson were fine efforts, Wilson’s taking a kind deflection, so benefitting from a touch of luck. It was not here that Chelsea chiefly fell down.

But Wilson is the Premier League’s most prolific goal contributor since the beginning of November other than Erling Haaland, so the regularity with which a Fulham team-mate was able to just play into the unmarked Welshman in the middle of the park to spring a Fulham attack will have concerned Chelsea. Here was a match that certainly didn't display the best of Chelsea’s expensively assembled midfield.

Rosenior will need to get the best from Cole Palmer after injury

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Television cameras even picked up Rosenior in conversation with Eghbali and sporting director Paul Winstanley, appearing to show his frustration at Pedro Neto’s movement and technique after he had cut inside off the left and produced a cross that flew over the heads and out of play.

There were glimpses of promise here and there that Rosenior will have liked. When Jorrel Hato, the 19-year-old summer signing from Ajax, came on at left back following Cucurella’s red, he put in one of his most effective performances in blue yet. And Liam Delap asked constant questions of Fulham's back-three before scoring his first league goal for Chelsea.

But Chelsea need more than mere silver linings and consolations. Rosenior has seen the challenge ahead for himself. Now to get started.