The way Chelsea are run will come as no surprise to Liam Rosenior. He has longstanding relationships with three of the five sporting directors and will know from his time at Strasbourg, who are part of the same ownership, that the head coach’s best chance of surviving is not to make the mistake of rebelling against the structure.
Rosenior will have to show more political savvy than Enzo Maresca, who talked himself out of the job last week. Yet given the 41‑year‑old is familiar with the working conditions at BlueCo, the investment vehicle that owns Chelsea and Strasbourg, his biggest challenge is unlikely to be managing upwards. Rosenior will know where to train his focus and not to rock the boat. Crucially, he does not inherit a team in crisis. Chelsea are fifth and earned a creditable draw at Manchester City on Sunday; despite the rancour of Maresca’s final days, this is not a situation that calls for a major rebuild.
It will be more about minor adjustments for Rosenior. He needs to rouse Cole Palmer, whose season has been disrupted by a groin injury, and work out how to eradicate Chelsea’s habit of throwing away leads, particularly at home. Better discipline will help. Rosenior will surely not like that his young side are bottom of the fair play table after picking up 43 yellow cards and four reds in 20 league games.
But these are things the Englishman can control. Less predictable is how he will be received by Chelsea’s supporters. Already there is a sense of dissatisfaction. A lot of fans are unhappy about how the club have been run under the Todd Boehly‑Clearlake Capital ownership and it is a worry that Rosenior finds himself in the unfortunate position of being perceived by some as a yes man who is getting the job only because his bosses know he will do as he is told.
Getting an impressionable young squad on board will be less taxing. Although Rosenior has never dealt with stars such as Palmer and Enzo Fernández, this is a milder dressing room compared with the one run by John Terry. The players will respond to good coaching. However, Maresca had the respect of the team and still ran into problems with supporters who disliked his methodical football, called him a Championship manager in difficult times and decried him as a puppet for the board.
It will not be easy for Rosenior to combat a similar narrative, even though it is unfair. Some Chelsea fans are so aggrieved by the manner of Maresca’s departure that they plan to stage a protest against the board before the home game against Brentford on 17 January. For Rosenior, the danger is getting caught in the crossfire. Many fans are not at ease with what they regard as their club’s identity changing.
Some complain of a creeping Americanisation on matchdays and are not happy about ticketing processes. Others simply say standards have dropped since the Roman Abramovich era; they join Maresca in questioning the Chelsea project and wonder how Rosenior, whose experience of management in England is limited to stints at Derby and Hull, is qualified to take on a job of this size.
The counter, of course, is that Rosenior has more on his CV than Maresca did when Chelsea hired the Italian after he led Leicester to the Championship title. But this is about perception. The fact that Rosenior is part of the system makes fans jumpy. It means he has to get the messaging right. He has to look, feel and speak like a Chelsea manager from day one. The mind goes back to when Graham Potter replaced Thomas Tuchel shortly after the takeover in 2022. Potter was a bright, young English manager and proven in the Premier League, but he was not a big name and it immediately felt ominous when he admitted at his unveiling that he had never been to a Champions League game.
Fans pay attention to this stuff. They have seen Chelsea win the Champions League twice and pine for the days when the removal of a manager meant Abramovich would be looking for someone of the calibre of Carlo Ancelotti, José Mourinho or Tuchel.
But the culture has changed, broadly because of a strategy led by Behdad Eghbali, Clearlake’s co-founder. Chelsea buy and hire young. It is a long-term project but supporters are impatient and frustration bubbles up when results dip, which often leaves the manager in the firing line.
Stamford Bridge has not always been a happy place during the past three years. Potter never settled during his seven months and was showered with abuse during a damaging defeat by Southampton in February 2023. Mauricio Pochettino, a Tottenham hero, also struggled to win people over during his single season and, for all that Maresca tried to cuddle up to supporters during his final weeks, the Italian never really had a warm relationship with the crowd.
The problem is that the fans regard managers as a symbol of an ownership many remain unconvinced by. It is almost a learned response to hound them after a disappointing performance. Maresca was booed during and after his final game in charge. Take a step back, though, and the interesting question is whether the boos were meant for him or the project as a whole.
It means Rosenior is not walking into an easy environment. The pressure will be on immediately. Chelsea are in a battle for the top four, face Arsenal in a Carabao Cup semi-final and have two Champions League games before the end of the month. It is a tough start for Rosenior but rising to the challenge would help him win over the doubters.
