STATISTICAL DECLINE: TRACKING ROSENIOR’S THREE WINS IN TWELVE GAMES SINCE REPLACING ENZO MARESCA
Chelsea face a Champions League crisis after a 3-0 loss at Everton marked their fourth consecutive defeat under Liam Rosenior.
Chelsea has become a club that seems to understand the cost of everything but struggles to grasp true value. This disconnect is evident as the team drifts toward missing out on Champions League qualification, led by a head coach who appears unprepared for the challenge.
Their recent 3-0 loss at Everton leaves them just a point behind fifth-placed Liverpool in the race for the final Champions League spot. Given the Premier League’s strong position in UEFA’s coefficient rankings, an extra place is almost guaranteed, but this defeat wasn't an isolated incident. It marks Chelsea’s fourth defeat in a row across all competitions, with three consecutive matches without scoring. Among these struggles was a brutal 8-2 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League round of 16.
Liam Rosenior stepped in as head coach after leaving Strasbourg in January, replacing Enzo Maresca. Yet under Rosenior, Chelsea have won only three of their last twelve matches. This poor streak has largely gone unnoticed amid various other distractions around the club.
Off the pitch, Chelsea faced a Premier League-record fine of £10.75 million and a suspended transfer ban related to past illicit payments under Roman Abramovich’s ownership. Meanwhile, Rosenior’s own awkward and sometimes puzzling remarks have done little to calm nerves.
For example, handing Alejandro Garnacho a tactical note with only five minutes left to overcome a six-goal deficit against PSG struck many as desperate. Similarly, defending players’ decision to crowd around the ball and referee Paul Tierney before their 1-0 home loss to Newcastle, a show of “respect for the ball", seemed tone-deaf.
Amid these distractions, it's easy to overlook how the team is actually performing. Currently, Chelsea resembles an unbalanced, inexperienced side, managed by someone thrust into a role he isn’t yet equipped to handle. Rosenior has a six-year contract, but that hasn’t shielded him from criticism from a dissatisfied fanbase. Still, blaming him alone would be unfair.
He represents more of a symptom than the root cause of the club’s deeper issues. His presence reflects the philosophy of new ownership, Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly’s BlueCo, who seem to mix heavy spending in certain areas with tight controls in others.
Chelsea’s squad is packed with forwards, often brought in at inflated prices, while critical positions like goalkeeper and head coach receive less investment. Take last summer’s recruitment spree: Jamie Gittens arrived from Borussia Dortmund for around £48.5 million; two months later, Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho joined for £40 million; and earlier, Estêvão, just 18 years old, came from Palmeiras for an initial £29 million. These are promising young wingers, sure, and wingers are needed. But while chasing these forward prospects, the club bypassed a reliable, experienced goalkeeper like AC Milan’s Mike Maignan, considering his £21 million fee too steep.
In consequence, Chelsea started the season with Robert Sánchez and Filip Jørgensen competing between the sticks, yet neither has proven dependable. Both have made costly errors recently. Rosenior dropped Sánchez in favour of Jørgensen against PSG, but the Danish keeper’s mistakes contributed to goals. Then Sánchez was back for the Everton game and also faltered.
So, despite pouring nearly £2 billion into players since Clearlake and BlueCo took over in May 2022, Chelsea still lacks a solid goalkeeper. But they do have plenty of wingers.
Rosenior inherits this flawed setup and is trying to manage with the cards he’s dealt. He still has talented players like Cole Palmer, Moisés Caicedo, and João Pedro at his disposal, but his appointment highlights Chelsea’s ongoing failure to appreciate experience and proven quality.
Within football circles, Rosenior is seen as bright and intelligent. Wayne Rooney praised him during their time together at Derby County. However, he was sacked by Hull City in May 2024 after narrowly missing out on a playoff spot, coming off a season near the bottom of the table.
Despite his potential, the jump from Strasbourg to Chelsea proved too large. Stamford Bridge’s management thrust him into a role he isn’t prepared for.
At Chelsea, coaches often become just one piece in a complex structure with upper management and multiple sporting directors calling the shots. This model only works if the coach is given real freedom to lead.
A club of Chelsea’s stature demands more from its head coach than tactical skill alone. They need someone who can command the room and handle intense scrutiny from fans and media alike. Every word, every action matters. Rosenior, like his predecessor Maresca, has repeatedly misspoke – an understandable flaw given his inexperience, but damaging nonetheless.
Managing teams like Hull or Strasbourg doesn’t prepare you for Chelsea, where the pressure is immense. Abramovich’s era valued high-profile managers with big personalities and records: Mourinho, Ancelotti, Conte, and Tuchel. The current approach seems quite different. The focus is on flashy young forwards with potential, while cutting corners on goalkeepers and coaches.
Rosenior is the embodiment of this two-tier strategy, and both he and the team are paying the price.
ALEJANDRO GARNACHO ADMITS "DOING WRONG THINGS" DURING FINAL MONTHS AT MANCHESTER UNITED
Alejandro Garnacho breaks silence on his Man Utd downfall. Read why he admits "doing the wrong things" before his Chelsea move.
Alejandro Garnacho has opened up about why things ended the way they did at Manchester United, admitting he played a part in how it all fell apart at Old Trafford.
At 21, Garnacho was once one of United's top young talents. He joined the club as a teenager back in 2020, but things turned bad pretty quickly after that early promise. Once he had a fallout with Ruben Amorim, he found himself pushed aside, and it was obvious he wasn’t going to stay in Manchester much longer.
That long, drawn-out £40 million move to Chelsea finally went through last summer. At the time, speaking in December, Garnacho said he didn’t regret how it ended at United. “Sometimes in life, you have to change things to move forward or get better as a player. This was the right club and [moving] was an easy decision,” he said.
But a few months later, talking with Premier League Productions, you could tell his feelings had shifted. He looked back at his last stretch at United and said, “I remember in the last six months, I just wasn’t playing like before. I started ending up on the bench. Not the worst thing, I was only 20, after all, but in my mind, I felt like I should be playing every game.”
Then he admitted, “Honestly, maybe some of it was on me. I started doing the wrong things. But that’s how life goes; you have to make decisions. I’m proud to still be in the Premier League and playing for a club like this.”
When someone asked if leaving United hurt, Garnacho got a little nostalgic. “Yeah, probably. I loved that club, you know? They believed in me from the start. They brought me from Spain to the academy and then to the first team. It was four or five years of love for the fans, the stadium, everything was really good."
"But sometimes, you have to make changes for your own good or the next step in your life. I only have good memories of Man Utd.”
JOE COLE SLAMS "DISGRACEFUL" ENZO FERNANDEZ COMMENTS; DEMANDS FIRM CHELSEA RESPONSE
Enzo Fernandez is suspended! Joe Cole warns Chelsea to take a firm stance against the star's Real Madrid transfer talk.
Chelsea have been told it’s time to lay down the law after Enzo Fernandez’s recent remarks about a possible future in Spain set off a wave of controversy. Joe Cole, one of their former wingers, says the club needs to make a clear call, especially with all the rumours linking Fernandez to Real Madrid.
Cole isn’t thrilled about this Fernandez situation popping up again. Once Fernandez started talking openly about how much he likes life in Madrid, the Real Madrid speculation heated up fast. Chelsea responded by suspending him for two games, including the big clash this weekend with Manchester City. Cole, looking at how the saga’s played out, warns that this is turning into a real problem.
Talking to Paddy Power, Cole pointed out the danger here: with the Fernandez drama happening more than once now, the club’s authority is starting to look shaky. In his words, Chelsea has reached a point where they can’t dodge the issue anymore; they need to be clear and decisive about what’s acceptable from their players.
"It’s tough," Cole said. “This isn’t even just about punishment, I mean, this is the second time Enzo’s done something like this. The club has to take a firm stance. Honestly, for players like Enzo, this isn’t what they signed up for when they joined Chelsea. Sure, I get why he’s frustrated, but coming out and talking about leaving just isn’t on. Now the club has to decide if the ban fits the crime. Eventually, if Enzo wants out, he needs to actually ask for a transfer, not just talk.”
He also thinks Chelsea holds all the cards, thanks to Fernandez’s deal running for years, until 2032. The priority, Cole says, needs to be protecting their team culture, not just keeping star players happy.
"We don’t really know how long this has all been bubbling under, but if Chelsea felt they had to suspend him for a match as big as City, nobody’s coming out ahead, neither the player nor the club," Cole added.
“If you’re running Chelsea, you just tell Enzo, ‘You’re with us for another five years. Keep acting out, and you’ll just be sitting on the bench, career on pause, wasting your weekly wage.’ I get it’s a mess, and I’m not sure there’s a perfect way through, but I haven’t seen a better solution so far.”
Still, Chelsea doesn’t want this to drag on. Their disciplinary decision is really about keeping standards high behind the scenes. Rosenior is focusing on building a team that holds itself together, not just a collection of stars. Chelsea still sees Fernandez as crucial to their plans and hopes this whole episode resets things, not sparks a bigger problem. With the race for Champions League football and an FA Cup semi-final against Leeds on the horizon, they want to settle things and get Enzo back on the pitch where he matters most.
