{"id":5238,"date":"2026-01-06T15:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5238"},"modified":"2026-01-06T15:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T15:13:07","slug":"liam-rosenior-why-chelsea-chose-41-year-old-englishman-as-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5238","title":{"rendered":"Liam Rosenior: Why Chelsea chose 41-year-old Englishman as manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is pressure on Chelsea to get this appointment right, with some supporters chanting the name of former owner Roman Abramovich during Sunday&#8217;s draw at Manchester City and a fringe group of fans planning a protest against the owners before the next home Premier League match against Brentford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is against that backdrop they have turned to a man who is well known to key figures at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rosenior first met Chelsea&#8217;s co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart more than 15 years ago while playing for Brighton. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And Sam Jewell &#8211; Chelsea&#8217;s director of global recruitment &#8211; worked closely with Rosenior when he began coaching Brighton Under-23s after retiring. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rosenior also knew Stewart during his time as an analyst at Hull, where he played and later managed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last summer, during the Club World Cup, he travelled to the United States with Strasbourg president Marc Keller to meet Chelsea&#8217;s leadership, and owners Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly have made regular visits to the French club.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He has always been seen as a potential successor to Maresca, but a mid-season change was not planned. Chelsea hoped Rosenior could continue to build experience at Strasbourg, but Maresca&#8217;s comments at the end of last year forced the owners into a change.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They see their new man, who favours a similar possession-based style, as the most seamless option.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sources close to Rosenior also believe he has a more empathetic tone of communication &#8211; drawing on lessons from his mother Karen, who is a social worker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He will face scrutiny over his perceived rawness, but Chelsea will point to the fact he has more experience than Maresca when the Italian was appointed in 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Maresca had won the Championship, of course, while Rosenior has yet to lift a trophy &#8211; but the incoming coach has managed 153 senior games at Hull and Strasbourg compared with his predecessor&#8217;s 67. Maresca was also Pep Guardiola&#8217;s assistant during Manchester City&#8217;s Treble-winning season of 2022-23.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is also the issue of Rosenior coming to Chelsea on a bad run of form, having won none of his past five Ligue 1 matches, just two in 10, and having dropped 13 points from winning positions this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">French football expert Julien Laurens told BBC Radio 5 Live: &#8220;I really believe the owners put him in the Strasbourg job to get him ready for the Chelsea job one day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think if he showed he could be capable at Strasbourg, which is taking a team which was almost going down into Europe &#8211; to taking it close to Champions League qualification, which is what he did last season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think that showed his potential. It showed his development, showed his ability to improve the team and players individually.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is pressure on Chelsea to get this appointment right, with some supporters chanting the name of former owner Roman Abramovich during Sunday&#8217;s draw at Manchester City and a fringe group of fans planning a protest against the owners before the next home Premier League match against Brentford. It is against that backdrop they have<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}