BBC Sport Chelsea reporter Nizaar Kinsella, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live about Liam Rosenior’s appointment: “It felt like a sensible decision, but of course you would have said he might know the system, and he might know how to work with the people inside Chelsea, but he had only managed Strasbourg, Hull City, and Derby County.”
Did he have the experience to handle a club like Chelsea?: “The owners would have thought he could learn it, and he could sort of develop. It has sort of eaten him up and he has not lasted four months. It has shown you might need a bit of gravitas to handle the dressing room at the highest level in English football.”
Chelsea fan Teema Nicholls reacting to news of Liam Rosenior’s sacking on BBC Radio 5 Live: “He had to go. He couldn’t have stayed, but Liam Rosenior was not and is not the biggest problem at Chelsea. Those that appointed him and other managers have also got to face serious questions and the sack as well.
“I think they put him in an unfair position and we as a football club are now facing consequences. Whoever is appointed next is a huge appointment. I don’t think the ones that appointed Rosenior can be part of that decision-making.”
The numbers behind Chelsea’s poor form under Rosenior
- Chelsea have lost five successive league games without scoring for the first time since November 1912.
- Their overall five-game losing streak is their longest in the Premier League since November 1993.
- Across each team’s past nine games in the Premier League, only Tottenham (two) have won fewer points than Chelsea’s five.
- The Blues are now without a clean sheet in any of their past 12 league games – it is only the second time they have had as long a run in the competition.
- Chelsea’s xG in the first half against Brighton (0.04) was lower than they had in any of Enzo Maresca’s 114 halves of top-flight football as Chelsea boss.
- It was also the longest they have gone into a league game this season before attempting their first shot (41st minute).
- Only West Ham (15) have conceded more goals from corners than Chelsea (11) in the Premier League this season, with 11 the joint-most for the Blues in a campaign in the competition (level with 1994-95).