“To be honest” – Liam Rosenior reveals why he took off Chelsea’s best players in PSG defeat | OneFootball

Liam Rosenior has defended his decision to substitute Cole Palmer, Joao Pedro and Enzo Fernandez in the second half against PSG.

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PSG strolled to a 3-0 win at Stamford Bridge to inflict an 8-2 defeat on the Blues over two legs and advance to the quarter finals.

It was an awful evening for Chelsea, and Stamford Bridge emptied in it’s thousands in the second half, on a real low point under the Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital ownership.

Liam Rosenior defends substitutions against PSG

With the Blues needing to overturn a three goal deficit, Rosenior opted to deploy a back three of Trevoh Chalobah, Mamadou Sarr and Jorrel Hato.

However, that backfired after six minutes with Sarr making a mistake which allowed Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to score his third goal of the tie.

Further goals followed from Bradley Barcola and Senny Mayulu, and with the game and tie long done, Rosenior opted to remove Palmer, Pedro and Fernandez.

The decision didn’t go down well with the fans left in the stadium, and Rosenior was asked after the game if it was an admission of defeat.

“I think it’s not just an admission,” he told his post match press conference.

“It’s a reality of where the group are. They’ve played over 100 games in 18 months. They’ve had no break in terms of the international games, the travelling that, say, Joao Pedro or Enzo Fernandez or Moises Caicedo do to South America.

“It’s not an excuse. This is a by-product of success of the Club World Cup and it’s a great thing that the club achieved at the Club World Cup.”

Chelsea head coach thinking of the long term

Rosenior also stated the importance of managing minutes after losing Reece James to injury, and insisted he wanted to get the Blues into the Champions League next season.

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“You’re seeing with Reece [James], you’re seeing with players, that if I don’t manage their minutes, their likelihood of getting injured is increased very highly,” he added.

“So 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 maybe 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.”

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