LIAM ROSENIOR is manager of Chelsea football club.
The two-time Champions of Europe, the current World Champions, a team with six top flight titles and more than a dozen other major trophies.
One of the richest sports clubs in the world, a powerhouse in European football for a quarter of a century with fans in every corner of the globe.
Now led by a coach with no Premier League experience and who has finished no higher than seventh in any league – and signed on a six-and-a-half-year deal no less.
This is not a personal attack on Rosenior, far from it, it is an incredible opportunity for someone who has gained a very good reputation in coaching circles.
By all accounts he has a very bright football brain with a big future ahead of him, having enjoyed decent success in all three stops of his managerial career so far.
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I wish him the very best of luck and hope he is supremely successful. As a fan, I absolutely hope he makes me eat these words and leads Chelsea to Premier League and Champions League glory.
With all due respect to Derby County, Hull City and Strasbourg, there are levels in football.
The three clubs have three major trophies combined this century (all Strasbourg) and the last time any of them won a top-flight league title or played in Europe’s top cup competition was Derby under Dave Mackay in 1976.
I sound like a spoilt ‘Big 6’ fan – and yes, it could always be much worse.
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But this is present day Chelsea and those clubs do not currently operate anywhere close to the level that Rosenior has previously been. He’s never had to deal with the type of scrutiny and pressure he is about to face.
This is a personal admission, for me at least, of the sinking feeling I’ve been having for many, many months – BlueCo Chelsea are not interested in sustained winning at the very highest level.
Dominance at the elite level requires a supreme level of ruthlessness, drive, urgency and a sickness to want to be the best and beat others to be the best.
It requires proper investment and recruitment in areas of weakness and strength, a consistent drive to be better than rivals and not settle, rather than a model that prioritises asset management and forecasts growth potential.
Chelsea once turned to the biggest managers in the world – globally recognised names that brought with them huge excitement AND huge expectation.
It did not always work out, of course, but the pressure to bring success at the very highest echelons in football was always there.
For better or worse, Chelsea managers had to challenge for trophies season in and season out or they were sacked.
That will not be Liam Rosenior’s remit, the statement made that very clear, reading: “While there will continue to be a focus on player development, the club’s expectations and ambitions remain high.”
The first point made being about player development and nothing specific about winning or delivering silverware, just a reference to having ambition.
There will be moderate successes along the way – last season proved that – but the BlueCo model is not conducive to challenging the likes of Arsenal or Man City for the Premier Leauge, or Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain for the Champions League.
Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta are the two best managers in the country right now and faced that pressure cooker over and over, as players and from the dugout.
Arteta was a managerial novice when he first took the job at Arsenal but he had three years of experiencing winning as a deputy to Pep.
Crucially, he also had that Arsenal connection having played 150 games for the Gunners, affording him time to go learn through the growing pains.
After a good start in the role had the wording in his contract changed from ‘coach’ to ‘manager’ – a crucial differentiator that shows he has a big say on recruitment of players.
Again, none of this is a slight on Rosenior, who apparently has the tools to make this a success, but on the process that has brought him to the club.
Let’s look at some other potential candidates (not that there has been any indication that any of them were interviewed or even sounded out):
- Xavi Hernandez – one of the greatest midfielders ever and winner of LaLiga as a manager with Barcelona.
- Cesc Fabregas – World Cup winner as a plauer, former Chelsea star, led Como to promotion and currently 6th in Serie A as a manager
- Andoni Iraola – 400 LaLiga appearances as a player, success as a coach with Rayo Vallecano and now Bournemouth in the Premier League.
- Oliver Glasner – No high level playing career, but Europa League winner with Eintracht Frankfurt and FA Cup winner with Crystal Palace.
Any of those four names would fill me with more hope and excitement than Rosenior and would likely come with more expectation to deliver.
John Terry has no managerial jobs on his CV, but he has the same level of coaching badges and has experience in a Premier League dugout as an assistant at Aston Villa and Leicester City.
That’s before we mention Terry’s obvious merits as one of Chelsea’s greatest and most successful players.
In any business you have to do due diligence and should give candidates a fair shot at a job, even if you go into the process perhaps favouring one over another.
But BlueCo seemingly haven’t been in touch with any other candidates and have been laser focused on Rosenior, who is already part of the firm with Strasbourg.
For the record, I did not agree with the appointments of Graham Potter, Frank Lampard (his second spell) or Enzo Maresca – two of those were abject failures and now Maresca has been booted because he can’t work with the hierachy.
Rosenior, 41, should go into this role knowing there are huge and immediate red flags. Chelsea do not have an environment or business model that will allow for sustained success.
Enzo Maresca is certainly not the first coach to fall out with those in charge at Stamford Bridge .
The Italian walked away from £14MILLION to get away from SW6 – that should be as big an indicator as any that the coach is a lame duck.
Most of us would find it hard to leave £140 on the table.
He first made noises last summer after Levi Colwill was injured, stating he thought the club needed a replacement to be able to compete.
Maresca was ignored and no new centre-back arrived, with the position Chelsea’s weakest this season, according to SunSport’s player ratings of the season so far at least.
Still, £40million was found two weeks later for the needless signing of another winger in Alejandro Garnacho, who has started 10 Premier League matches and scored one goal.
Previous to Maresca, Mauricio Pochettino also left the club by mutual consent.
After a rocky start, Poch ended the 2023-24 season brilliantly, losing just one of his final 15 Premier League matches with the Blues looking like they were set to kick on.
I wrote at the time about how his sacking had sent Chelsea back to the drawing board. In truth, I could cut and paste a lot of that article into this one.
Poch wanted the club to go in a certain direction with recruitment the following summer to build on his late season success.
But that did not fit the plan and the Argentine felt he could not work under those conditions so walked away – lasting just a year after coping with Daniel Levy for five.
Then there’s Thomas Tuchel, the manager that landed the Champions League in 2021.
He lasted only a month into the 2022-23 season – Clearlake’s first full season at the helm – with the hierarchy wheeling out the famous “palpable discord” line.
In reality, the German was fed up of working for those above him.
A source told The Sun at the time: “The new owners want to be everything. They want to buy the players and coach the players if they can.”
Fool me once, shame on me… fool me three times and maybe there is something more toxic at Chelsea’s core rather than misfiring managers.
Rosenior will also face a section of fans already mightily unimpressed at the sacking of Maresca and the current leadership of the club, with a protest against the board arranged for January 17.
Where a club legend like John Terry might buy a bit of time with the fans – much like Frank Lampard’s doomed return – the appointment of Rosenior is not going to get that same buffer.
As soon as results turn sour, so will the noise inside the stadium and media scrutiny on Rosenior is going to be at fever pitch from the moment he walks into Cobham.
Ultimately, this appointment is yet another indictment of the Clearlake/BlueCo strategy.
A bad decision following another, done on the cheap without the proper research or diligence on what else was potentially out there – all because the previous manager wanted a bigger say on running the team he was expected to lead to results.
Chelsea no longer operate like an elite football club but as a hedge fund trying to buy low and sell high on assets, always thinking they are the smartest people in the room and one step ahead of the market.
They’re not.
