Self-help speak and the sound of clapping: can Rosenior really survive Chelsea’s politics?

The prelude began by introducing the protagonists of the play. There in the stands of Craven Cottage sat Liam Rosenior, the conquering hero, elevated to a Premier League kingdom after exile abroad. Alongside him, Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali, looking like a man who had never been to a football match as he mimicked Rosenior’s celebration 30 seconds later after Chelsea scored.

Lurking in plain sight, with more predictability than a Chekovian gun, was Chelsea’s disciplinary record. Marc Cucurella shot it within 25 minutes, sent off for barging over Harry Wilson as he raced toward goal. The rest of the characters are not worth getting too invested in, given the way they come on and off stage depending on transfer whims, injury crises or bomb squad status.

This was the beginning of another saga in the BlueCo ownership of Chelsea, on to a fifth permanent head coach in three and a half years. Rosenior watched as Chelsea lost 2-1 to Fulham, their winless run in the Premier League stretching to five matches.

On paper, his appointment has a lot going for it. He becomes the second Black manager of Chelsea, following Ruud Gullit’s time in charge from 1996 to 1998. His pathway is one that many in football cry out for English coaches to be given. A successful but not stunning professional career leading to creditable time in the Championship before 18 months working with the youngest squad in Europe’s top five leagues, at Chelsea’s sister club Strasbourg, nurturing a bunch of teen talents brought from around the world to European football. Now his reward is a crack at the big time.

Yet his association with BlueCo makes it hard to buy into the fairytale. Rosenior has insisted that he is not just a yes man, but given the manner of Enzo Maresca’s departure, which was less about results and more about insolence, it seems that if Rosenior is true to his word, he will not last long.

Rosenior is certainly aware that his brisk elevation mid-season has raised a few eyebrows. “I know a lot of questions are being asked of my career, my CV, and my reputation. I’m not arrogant, I’m good at what I do,” he Mourinho-ed in his first press conference.

He doesn’t seem short on confidence. He is far-removed from BlueCo’s previous British managerial choice, Graham Potter, a man who appeared too fragile for football, let alone the brutal world of Chelsea FC. Rosenior’s introduction as Chelsea manager has been half David Brent, half Jake Humphrey High Performance Podcast. A line from his first interview with Sky Sports about Andrey Santos, who Rosenior managed when he was on loan at Strasbourg, proved him to be a master of the non sequitur. “He’s got two beautiful children that he’s brought into this world as well as an outstanding performance at Manchester City.”

There have been breathless media briefings that he is not wearing gloves during training sessions so that players can hear him applaud when they do something well, while in his pre-Brentford press conference he explained how he had been instructing his players to wash their hands properly, following an outbreak of flu in the Chelsea camp.

Predictably, Rosenior has been roundly mocked on social media for these pronouncements, as well as for a rediscovered clip from his time at Strasbourg where he said: “In English, ‘manage’, if you split the two words is ‘man’ and ‘age’, so you’re ‘ageing men’.” Rosenior does not have to manage people who post on social media, though.

He sounds like a man burping up a self-help book but if podcast listens and book sales are anything to go by, that vernacular has proven to be very appealing to both young men and venture capitalists, two key constituencies in his new role.

His main problem will be the way he is caught between the fanbase and the ownership. As he stood on the sidelines of his first match as Chelsea manager – a FA Cup third-round game away to Charlton – the home fans sang: “Liam Rosenior, he won’t last a year.”

The 5-1 win in that game meant Rosenior was the first Chelsea men’s manager to win his opening match since Antonio Conte in 2016. Chelsea fans sang Roman Abramovich’s name before turning on the owners. The same scenario was repeated on Wednesday night as Chelsea lost 3-2 to Arsenal in the first leg of their League Cup semi-final.

In his first home programme, Rosenior’s smizing face filled the front cover. By the time Arsenal were 3-1 up, it was possible to detect a hint of sadness behind his eyes. There were boos directed at bungling goalkeeper Robert Sánchez as Chelsea tried to build from the back, a hallmark of the way Rosenior wants to play. If Rosenior appears not to age in the course of his time at Chelsea, it might be worth checking how the picture of him on the programme ends up looking.

“When my players make mistakes, I’m accountable,” said Rosenior in his post-match press conference. “That’s on me.” His problem is that that is also true about any mistakes the ownership makes, of which if past decisions are to go by, there will be plenty.

A small group of Chelsea fans protested outside Stamford Bridge before the club’s 2-0 win over Brentford yesterday. It was much the same fare as has been sung in the stands over the past couple of weeks, with little imagination about what is meant when they say “We want our club back”, given that is normally followed by Abramovich’s name. Surely they could dream a little bit bigger.

The good news for Rosenior was that he was able to secure a first Premier League win, made even more crucial by Manchester United’s victory over Manchester City. For Chelsea, the focus has to be Champions League qualification even as they remain in all four club competitions. He had close to a full-strength team and while his side rode their luck at points, he has made it through the first week with two wins from three. The only certainty here, though, is that his rollercoaster has only just begun.

Photograph by Henry Nicholls / AFP via Getty Images