‘Good idea’ or taking ‘massive chance’ – is Rosenior ready for Chelsea?

The 41-year-old Englishman has had a positive impression on French Ligue 1 side Strasbourg, who are also BlueCo owners, which gave him the opportunity to join the Londoners.

He would take over from Enzo Maresca, who won the Club World Cup in the summer, but became the latest Blues boss to fall out with the hierarchy and left on Thursday.

According to BBC pundit and former Chelsea winger Pat Nevin, “they will get someone in who is young and easy to manipulate.”

Rosenior would become the fourth of the five previous Chelsea managers to have held the position in the Championship if appointed.

He took his pre-match news conference as usual before Strasbourg’s game against Nice on Saturday.

He said, “I’m going to talk about Nice because it’s my job,” according to quotes from the local newspaper DNA.

“As a coach, if you get involved, you fail,” he said. There is a lot of noise and speculation.

” I don’t want to guarantee how long I’ll be here, but I enjoy myself here every day. I adore this club, but I can’t promise anything. Nobody can.

“I could say I’m going to stay here for years and then get fired”.

He said that because we are all in the same group, there are discussions about getting in touch with Chelsea.

One of Rosenior’s most striking achievements with Strasbourg has been guiding them into the top reaches of Ligue 1 while fielding a team of youngsters, something which would stand him in good stead with Chelsea.

The Blues’ line-up was 24 years and 36 days old on average last season, which is the lowest age of any Premier League team overall.

Tosin Adarabioyo, 28, is their oldest player, and earlier this year they became the first team to feature three teenagers in a Champions League game.

Meanwhile, in August Strasbourg became the first club in Europe’s top five leagues to play a team of players all born in the 2000s – and had an average age of 20 years and 283 days for a Ligue 1 game against Monaco. The 22-year-old player was the oldest.

Ben Chilwell, a former England left-back who left Chelsea for Strasbourg in the summer, spoke to Nizaar Kinsella from BBC Sport in November about Rosenior’s leadership style.

“The manager is very good at managing a young dressing room”, he said. Not necessarily an immature dressing room, but a young dressing room with no prior knowledge of what it takes to win things, according to the article.

The manager wants to win things this season, wants us to win the French Cup, and wants us to win the Conference League.

Strasbourg finished seventh last season, and sit in the same position again after 16 games of this campaign.

With five victories and a draw, including victories over Crystal Palace and Aberdeen, they finished top of the Conference League group for the current season.

Strasbourg has only won one of its last six Ligue 1 games, which has slowed down the organization’s recent form.

They were third in the middle of October, one point behind leaders Paris St-Germain, but they are now 14 points behind Lens, who are currently in charge.

Rosenior has not been wedded to a shape, playing in both a 4-2-3-1 and a 3-4-3 formation.

They have the third-highest passes in Ligue 1 this season in the passing game, but they only have eighth in the opposition half.

Their 55 through balls, another record for the league, are significantly higher than anyone else, and they are also in a league low for long passes, once more, by some means.

In fact Strasbourg have played fewer long passes than any other team in Europe’s top five leagues – 511. Barcelona, the team with the most long balls, has 598 to go.

In contrast, Chelsea has allowed 925 long passes this season.

Strasbourg have been clinical too, ranking 14th for shots in Ligue 1 but seventh for goals.

Liam is very innovative, according to Marc Keller, club president, who denied that Strasbourg are Chelsea’s feeder club in November.

He says, “They have space to play because we are playing with a young team and he is playing top football.”

Roughly half his career was spent in the EFL and that’s where he started his coaching career.

He spent three years at Derby after serving as Brighton’s under-23 coach.

Before taking over as interim boss following Rooney’s departure, he was first-team coach under Phillip Cocu and then assistant to Wayne Rooney.

But he was more hands-on than the average assistant.

Rosenior should have been in charge, not Rooney, according to BBC football news reporter Simon Stone, who reported on the incident that occurred when Mel Morris fired Phillip Cocu in November 2020.

Rooney, of course, had the profile, but Rosenior was the one to organize the games and provide direction for the team.

“Rosenior replaced Rooney for a short time in 2022, after administration had led to relegation into League One.

Rosenior helped to restore Derby, which had only five players under contract, and brought in 14 new players.

Given that they were seventh when Rosenior left and that Paul Warne’s replacement, who was Rosenior’s replacement, they didn’t even earn a play-off spot, according to history, the new ownership would have been preferable to leave them in charge.

He then spent almost two years as Hull manager – with observers again thinking he was harshly done by at the end.

When he took over the Tigers in November 2022 and placed them 15th, they were one point above the relegation zone.

Rosenior was fired the following season after falling three points clear of the play-off spots.

They include Thomas Tuchel, who had won the Champions League, and Maresca, who lifted the Club World Cup in the summer.

Despite appearing to stabilise the team in the latter stages of the season, Mauricio Pochettino left the organization 18 months ago.

If Chelsea didn’t already own the team, would they look to the seventh-place manager in the French league?

BBC pundit Nevin said: “Chelsea need someone who is going to buy into the methodology. You need a puppet, that is another expression. Someone who heeds their orders straight away.

” Chelsea want success. However, they desire something more. They are looking for someone who will follow their instructions. Those two things may not be compatible.

“Liam Rosenior sounds like a really good idea, but he’s never done it at this level,” Rosenior said. There is a disproportionately high chance of taking someone in who doesn’t possess that level of experience.

Rosenior does have more managerial experience than his predecessor Maresca, who had a short spell at Parma in 2021 and one season as Leicester boss before taking over at Chelsea in 2024.

Dion Dublin, a former Manchester United striker, said “Rosenior is doing brilliant at Strasbourg.”

He continued, “Chelsea had a manager who I don’t think will be matched unless they spend a lot of money on it to find a top-notch manager,” and that is unlikely to happen.