Liam Rosenior has been shown the door at Chelsea. His reign wasn't glamourous. Towards the end, protests were made against him and every fan was calling for his head.
Chelsea have parted company with Liam Rosenior - just 107 days after he took charge. A club statement said they would "undertake a process of self-reflection to make the right long-term appointment".
Rosenior had been appointed as a surprise replacement for Maresca in January, but seven defeats in the last eight matches has led to his reign being cut short after less than four months.
The 41-year-old apologised to the travelling fans at Brighton at full-time but then hit out at his players, calling their performance "indefensible," "unacceptable" and "unprofessional."
During his time in charge, Rosenior also oversaw Carabao Cup semi-final defeats to Arsenal and an 8-2 aggregate thrashing in the Champions League last-16 by Paris St-Germain.
However, he did secure FA Cup wins over Championship sides Charlton, Hull City and Wrexham (on penalties) before a 7-0 drubbing of League One bottom club Port Vale set up Sunday's FA Cup semi-final with Leeds.
A Chelsea statement read: "Chelsea Football Club has today parted company with head coach Liam Rosenior. On behalf of everyone at Chelsea FC, we would like to place on record our gratitude to Liam and his staff for all their efforts during their time with the club."
"Liam has always conducted himself with the highest integrity and professionalism following his appointment mid-way through the season."
"This has not been a decision the club has taken lightly, however recent results and performances have fallen below the necessary standards with still so much more to play for this season. Everyone at Chelsea FC wishes Liam every success in the future."
"Calum McFarlane will take charge of the team as interim head coach until the end of the season with support from existing club backroom staff, as we strive to achieve European qualification and progress in the FA Cup."
"As the club works to bring stability to the head coach position, we will undertake a process of self-reflection to make the right long-term appointment."
Chelsea are planning to take their time to make the right appointment. They have not spoken to any candidates yet and no shortlist has been drawn up. However, the likes of Andoni Iraola, Oliver Glasner and Xabi Alonso will all be available.
Other names in the frame could be Marco Silva, if he leaves Fulham, and Cesc Fabregas. Chelsea have previously held talks with Luis Enrique, Julian Nagelsmann, Roberto De Zerbi and Hansi Flick when the top job has become available.
It remains to be seen whether elite-level managers are willing to work in the structure currently in place at the club. Even though Rosenior had a contract until 2032, Chelsea won't have to pay him up in full. As is common in contracts, there is a break clause. The settlement will be fair for him and fair for the club.
There was a grim inevitability about the thumping at Brighton and the nature of it. Chelsea were on the back foot from the first whistle as they conceded within three minutes and they looked bereft of the confidence required to haul themselves back into proceedings thereafter. For want of a better word, it was pathetic.
Having chased shadows throughout the first period, a brief resurgence early in the second half proved to be misleading as the hosts capitalised on an individual error to effectively put that game out of reach with 40 minutes still to play. Rosenior's side never once looked like mounting a comeback thereafter as the players visibly failed to put up a fight for their increasingly under-pressure head coach.
The toxic atmosphere in the away end was the cherry on top of a rotten cake, as chants of "We want our Chelsea back," "F*ck off Rosenior" and "F*ck off Eghbali, you're not welcome here" rang around the Amex Stadium with the home fans even joining in at one stage with chants of "Liam Rosenior, he's one of our own" in a tongue-in-cheek show of support for the former Brighton defender. In truth, there was no coming back from that.
Another grisly 3-0 defeat leaves Chelsea down in eighth in the Premier League, seven points off the top five despite having played a game more than their rivals. Their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League are now all-but over, and that clearly wasn't lost on their players as they lined up to stare blankly at the raging away support at full-time.
While the situation certainly wasn't entirely Rosenior's fault, it is inarguable that Chelsea's recent results and form are unacceptable.
The inexperienced Englishman has overseen a historically bad run, with the Blues beaten in five league matches in a row while failing to score a single goal in the process for the first time since 1912. The five-game losing streak is their longest since November 1993.
Since Rosenior's appointment in January, the west Londoners are 13th in the form table and they currently look more likely to be sucked deeper into mid-table in real life than they do to put a run of results together to ensure European qualification as the bare minimum in the four games that remain.
The beleaguered head coach's cause wasn't helped by Chelsea's daunting run-in; they still need to face Liverpool at Anfield, host relegation-battling Nottingham Forest and Tottenham and travel to Sunderland's Stadium of Light fortress on the final day in their now-desperate quest for European qualification. He was looking less and less likely to achieve that with each passing game.
There had been a lot of talk about Rosenior needing a whole pre-season to really show what he can do but the job the similarly-inexperienced Michael Carrick has done at Manchester United since being named their interim head coach at around the same time his counterpart started work - propelling the Red Devils from seventh to third - makes that a moot point.
The most telling moment of Liam Rosenior’s final press conference as Chelsea head coach on Tuesday was his candid response when asked if his team’s dire showing in a 3-0 defeat against Brighton and Hove Albion demonstrated a disconnect between him and his players.
"Judging off that performance, it looks that way," Rosenior admitted. "I won’t lie. That was unacceptable. I don’t feel there’s a disconnect between me and the players. We work very closely with them in training, in individual meetings, in team meetings. We are giving everything to the players. There is a lack of spirit, a lack of belief that can create that perspective. I can’t argue with that at the moment because the run we’re on is unacceptable and that performance definitely was as well."
Despite his eventual denial, the fact that Rosenior so readily engaged with the premise of the question was an acknowledgement of a situation that Chelsea swiftly — and reluctantly, given the high regard in which he is still held by the hierarchy — concluded was untenable.
Chelsea have not looked like a team imbued with belief in their head coach for several weeks. They have been sliding since Filip Jorgensen passed the ball straight to Bradley Barcola in the 74th minute of the Champions League tie at Paris Saint-Germain last month. In the aftermath of another humbling by Brighton — the club’s fifth successive league defeat without scoring a goal — Rosenior gave the impression of a coach who had run out of ideas.
That should not come as any great surprise. Rosenior is a raw, young coach whose resume coming into Chelsea consisted of an interim spell at Derby County, 18 months at Hull City and a similar time in charge of BlueCo. sister club, Strasbourg. He enjoyed a good professional playing career but could never be described as elite: his only winner’s medal is the 2003 Football League Trophy with Bristol City.
Nothing in Rosenior’s footballing past could have prepared him for the scale and the scrutiny of this challenge. He is, by all accounts, an intelligent man and a coach with modern, progressive tactical ideas and he has exhibited the boldness to deploy them in high-stakes matches at Chelsea.
He has also brushed off the external mockery and thrown himself completely into the job, but the quality of the plan is meaningless if you lack the capability to get the people under your management to buy into it.
The problem that doomed Rosenior was baked into his appointment: he had no basis to command authority at a club of Chelsea’s stature. Most coaches who arrive at this level can point to a track record of success in the dugout; even a relatively inexperienced figure like Enzo Maresca came armed with a promotion from the Championship with Leicester City and the unique glow of a Pep Guardiola apprenticeship at Manchester City.
Failing that, others can generally count upon an elite playing career to garner instant respect. This was why Frank Lampard was able to immediately assert himself at Chelsea in the summer of 2019 and why Michael Carrick has had no problem uniting a dispirited dressing room at Manchester United.
Rosenior had neither. The only basis for his authority at Chelsea was the fact that he had been hired (twice) by BlueCo. That foundation weakened following Champions League elimination at the hands of PSG with Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella both going public to question the decision-making of the ownership and sporting leadership. It was always going to crumble in the face of dire performances and flatlining results.
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Being viewed as "Mr BlueCo." was never going to endear Rosenior to Chelsea supporters, either. His name was sung after victories in the early weeks but his proximity to a deeply unpopular ownership and sporting leadership was always going to erode goodwill quickly once results turned. The chants that assailed him from the away end at the Amex Stadium on Tuesday felt irrevocable.
None of this is a particular criticism of Rosenior, who couldn't realistically turn down the Chelsea job. Once he had taken it, he did his best to convey the required charisma, to carry himself like an elite coach despite his lack of tangible credentials. If this was never particularly convincing to outside observers, it was always going to be a stretch to expect a dressing room of high-profile footballers to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The responsibility for putting Rosenior in this ultimately impossible position rests squarely with BlueCo and Chelsea’s sporting leadership.
Last week, co-owner Behdad Eghbali said 18 months of seeing Rosenior up close at Strasbourg meant Chelsea "knew what we were getting." How could the hierarchy not have foreseen how this would play out? The notion that a six-and-a-half-year contract could ever bestow him with the authority that experience and achievement could not seemed unconvincing at the time, and appears utterly ridiculous now.
Maresca departing at the turn of the year wasn't the plan and forced BlueCo. into an unenviable spot. A packed January schedule afforded no time for the kind of exhaustive coach search that can be undertaken in the summer and within that difficult context, Rosenior was viewed as something of a continuity hire.
That theory didn't hold up to closer examination. Rosenior couldn't count upon the trust Maresca had earned by leading these Chelsea players to a top-four finish and two trophies last season. His tactical outlook is also markedly different and the attempted transition of this team to a more energetic and radical man-to-man approach out of possession precipitated a sharp degradation in defensive structure and a rush of increasingly farcical goals conceded.
BlueCo.'s bet on Rosenior’s potential may simply be early rather than wrong. He has plenty of time to prove himself as a top-level coach elsewhere and it would be a huge shame if this wretched Chelsea experience deters him or makes potential future employers wary. He has shown enough in his career to suggest that, at the right club, he could perhaps build a reputation and CV worthy of another opportunity like this one.
Ultimately, this came down to BlueCo. betting on BlueCo. against the entire conventional wisdom of elite football and the reality that time and credibility at this unforgiving level only ever extend so far when results are poor.
That lesson should've been learned with the failure of Graham Potter in Year One of this project. The fact that a similar storyline has played out in Year Four is less than encouraging, given how many big decisions Chelsea’s powerbrokers are facing.
Another summer of change is coming at Stamford Bridge, as Chelsea search for their fifth permanent head coach in four years of BlueCo. ownership. If this hierarchy want to address their own worsening credibility problem with angry supporters and disaffected players, they need to make sure the figure they hire is one that everyone can believe in.
Rosenior leaves Chelsea seventh in the Premier League, seven points off fifth-placed Liverpool, who have a game in hand. Maresca left Chelsea in fifth but they had slipped to eighth by the time Rosenior took over from interim boss McFarlane.
Rosenior definitely took the job too soon. Having "yes men" in charge can't always be good. Rosenior should've waited a few more years to get more experience. He was highly naive.
I'm sure he'll have a good future. He's relatively young so he will get other opportunities to rebuild his reputation; out the BlueCo. ownership.