Chelsea’s season plumbed new depths in their 3-0 defeat to Brighton on Tuesday evening.
What perhaps makes matters even more alarming is not the result, but the fact that it didn’t even flatter Brighton.
Brighton played like a side contending for the top six – which they now very much are – while Chelsea looked like a side battling relegation. Indeed, from the start of February onwards, the Blues are 18th in the Premier League form table. Since the start of March, they’ve lost six of their seven games; they’ve also won just two of their last nine home games, one of them being the come-from-behind win against West Ham.
Their record in their last five games reads: played five, lost five, conceded 11, scored none.
After the match, Liam Rosenior told Sky Sports: "That was unacceptable in every aspect, unacceptable in our attitude. I keep coming out and defending the players, that’s indefensible. Something needs to change drastically."
It was indeed completely unacceptable for a club of Chelsea’s stature and it’s hard to see Rosenior not paying for it with his job.
The 41-year-old was building a promising coaching career for himself with Strasbourg, and while he was not forced to move to West London, it’s hard to turn that sort of opportunity down. In the end, it may be his first and last tilt at a job of this magnitude, with him ultimately deemed unsuitable for the role.
Speaking with the Coaches’ Voice back in the summer of 2024 after being sacked as Hull City manager, Rosenior said that his first priority was to keep the side in the Championship, sacrificing his principles at first.
"When I went, the team was conceding a lot of goals and only one point above the Championship relegation zone," said Rosenior. "I had to build a structure and style of play to keep the team safe in the division. That meant being pragmatic.
"Results were crucial for me to get buy-in. The players, the fans and the club need to feel that you are on the right track. You have to find a balance between building a philosophy and getting the results that will give you the time to build that philosophy.”
Rosenior continued: "Sometimes the players would come in expecting to train, when instead we would have something like a Lego-building competition. Why? Because that dynamic of working together and being together is just as important as the training you do on the pitch."
The first point is pertinent for most coaches arriving at any club. While a Pep Guardiola or Luis Enrique might already have buy-in from players, a Rosenior has to convince the players to believe in his methods and find a way to initially get results.
The second point may be where things are falling down. Rosenior is no longer at a relegation-threatened Hull City; he’s managing world-class footballers with sizeable egos tasked with qualifying for the UEFA Champions League, and it doesn’t appear he’s ever won them over.
Passing notes to players during games, getting them to huddle around the ball before kick-off – something he insists was their idea, despite them never doing it prior to his arrival. It doesn’t give the impression that the Chelsea players have bought in to what Rosenior wants.
With Chelsea 1-0 down at the Amex, Pedro Neto broke away down the right wing, one-on-one with his full-back. Rosenior urges him to take his man on; Neto decides to stop in his tracks, turn back and the attack breaks down.
If Rosenior told his players not to jump off a cliff, they’d likely end up in the English Channel.
At risk of trotting out a well-worn cliché, Rosenior appears to have lost the dressing room, and it’s not coming back. He’ll almost certainly pay for that with his job, but there are longer-term issues at play.
Chelsea now need to finish sixth and rely on Aston Villa finishing fifth and winning the Europa League in order to qualify for the UEFA Champions League. Failure to do that and there are huge problems mounting. Chelsea have a squad that’s not been built as much as it’s been thrown together, with players surely looking to leave if they fall into the Europa League – or worse.
Cole Palmer, Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella will likely be looking to move, while reports suggest the club are already looking to shift Alejandro Garnacho. It will all present another issue: which clubs are willing to take on under-performing players who are currently on six-year contracts?
The squad is sorely imbalanced, and anything positive Clearlake have done since taking over the club has been more luck than judgement.
The Blues’ financial situation looks increasingly perilous and will only get worse without UEFA Champions League football. Failure to qualify for the Europa League and Chelsea may actually opt to take a UEFA ban if one is forthcoming to get their punishment out of the way rather than play in the UEFA Conference League, which wouldn’t be sufficiently lucrative.
Chelsea need to sell numerous players, sign numerous players, and do both with hands tied behind their backs.
As bad as things are at the moment, they might be able to get much worse.
