Why Chelsea sacked Liam Rosenior and where BlueCo plan to turn next | OneFootball

Rosenior lasted just over three months at Stamford Bridge

Liam Rosenior’s Chelsea sacking was the same as his hiring in that both came earlier than they were supposed to.

Handing him the promotion to a job of this magnitude was no doubt tempting to Chelsea’s owners, given his 18-month proven track record at sister club Strasbourg, but this was an almighty step up for the 41-year-old Englishman that eventually proved to be beyond him at this early point in his managerial career.

The dismal form proved terminal. He leaves on the back of Tuesday’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton, which made it five league losses in a row without scoring for the first time since the year the Titanic sank.

There was a great degree of respect for Rosenior from BlueCo, Chelsea’s owners, but the free-fall was showing no signs of stopping any time soon and it was this very real risk that a disappointing season might end with FA Cup semi-final defeat to Leeds on Sunday and no European football that prompted a sea change far earlier than anyone could have expected when a grinning Rosenior first walked through the doors at Cobham not even four months ago.

Broken relations: Enzo Fernandez

PA

There was a feeling that the situation had become untenable, and that Brighton was to prove a more significant moment than just the latest defeat, when a livid Rosenior slammed his players for their “unacceptable” and “indefensible” performance, turning on a young squad who he had vehemently and obsessively defended, often to the point of ridicule.

Rosenior called into question the professionalism of a group now preparing to call Calum McFarlane their interim head coach for the second spell since the turn of the year. Long contracts obscure the reality at Chelsea, where all situations are fast-moving, all of the time.

While fans never, in complete unison, took to his predecessor, Enzo Maresca, it always felt as though they had cast a rather more unified verdict on Rosenior. Many felt his inexperience and the club’s inability to hire a top manager was symptomatic of the ownership’s struggles to appreciate the soul of a football club that not long ago had won the Champions League, twice.

Quotes such as “respect the ball” were deemed gimmicks and served to distract from on-pitch matters, which began to nosedive from the moment Chelsea collapsed in the final 16 minutes of their Champions League last-16 first leg away to Paris Saint-Germain by going from 2-2 to suffer a 5-2 defeat.

That was the first loss of Chelsea’s seven from their past eight games in all competitions — the spell of hopelessly bad form that has ultimately led to Rosenior being given his marching orders. Among the candidates talked up to replace him in the coming days and weeks will be Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola and Fulham’s Marco Silva, though formal conversations with contenders are yet to begin. They soon will, and Chelsea have to get it right this time.

In his defence, Rosenior came across significant challenges. Though there are suggestions the club’s youth-tilted transfer policy may be ridden back on slightly this summer, he will not reap the rewards of that decision now. Inexperience within the squad was palpable during some of Rosenior’s worst defeats.

There was a feeling that the situation had become untenable, and that the Brighton game was to prove more significant than just the latest defeat

He faced distractions aplenty. Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella criticised the Chelsea project and intimated that they felt it regrettable that Maresca was not still in charge.

Fernandez courted Real Madrid in public interviews. Wesley Fofana brushed his manager off when substituted against Manchester United. On each occasion, it was left to Rosenior to find words in press conferences that did not harm relationships or single players out.

It was little wonder he broke character after the spineless performance against Brighton, a match where his team news was leaked for the third time in five weeks, this time by the barber of a former Brighton player, Marc Cucurella, who shared prior knowledge of Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer’s injury-enforced absences on social media for the benefit of the Fantasy Football community.

“There’s your exclusive”, he wrote. The barber then feared there might be repercussions for his client following his misstep. Instead, it merely contributed to the unravelling of Rosenior’s reign.

Rosenior, who did begin to be doubted by some players by the end, must have been lamenting how unlucky he’d been. His post-match interviews after Brighton appeared to be not only raw anger but also, rightly or wrongly, a plea for sympathy.

Defenders of the BlueCo regime will say the hierarchy gave Rosenior the benefit of the doubt and could have sacked him sooner. Internationals left for the March break on the back of four consecutive defeats to PSG (twice), Newcastle and Everton. Even now, a month on, though, this is a very early termination, indeed, and a humiliation for all parties.

In the end, in the cold light of day after fans had turned on him, the Rosenior era, three and a half months into what was contracted to be six and a half years, was brought to an abrupt end following much deliberation.

Among his starkest lines following the ruinous defeat at Brighton was his claim that players had lacked “professionalism” and a promise that he “will pick a team on Sunday that represents the club in the correct manner”. He will not.