A week ago the writing was already on the wall for Liam Rosenior. Some would say it has been there for a while.
The spiral I wrote about then has only accelerated since the Manchester City game.
A coach who doesn’t have the trophies or the playing career to impress players can only rely on their results. If those start to fade, the players stop believing, their performances drop off, the results get worse, and the feedback loop spins faster.
Chelsea fans are well aware of this – they saw the same thing happen with Graham Potter just a few years ago.
The flaws in the BlueCo transfer policy have been pointed out countless times, but the issues with appointing promising young managers are a whole separate issue.
It is all very well trying to find the next big thing, but there is even less room for error for a coach than a player.
A player can be worked into a team slowly, dropped if they don’t play well, or even loaned out to find their feet elsewhere. A coach can’t be developed at a club which needs results from day one. At the very least, they need the authority to get the players to buy into what they are trying to do.
If your aim is to guarantee qualification for the Champions League, it’s better to have players doing their best in a system that is perhaps a little out of touch with the modern game – see Jose Mourinho at Manchester United – than it is to have a coach with bright ideas that nobody respects or listens to.
Most Chelsea fans came to that conclusion years ago after the Potter fiasco.
But it seems, once again, that they are seeing things more clearly than the owners and the sporting structure of their club.
Find more from Will Faulks at Chelsea News
