Chelsea’s Long Road Back to Champions League Contention
Enzo Maresca led the club back to Champions League football in his first season. They finished 4th in the Premier League, won the Conference League and also the Club World Cup.
However, relations were strained between Maresca and key figures at the club going back to the previous year. There were issues about transfer decisions and disagreements with the medical department.
Reports emerged that the coach and ownership were operating with fundamentally different philosophies. Added to that were rumours of Maresca eyeing up the Manchester City job after speculation that Pep was going to step down soon.
The breaking point came in December, as Chelsea had dropped 15 points from winning positions across the season. Maresca became the first Premier League manager ever to get sacked on January 1.
Liam Rosenior an unlikely successor
Liam Rosenior taking over was a big surprise to most people. The length of his contract at six and a half years was too, as it means he’s in place until summer 2032, if he lasts that long. Early signs aren’t too positive, with many players being visibly unsure about their manager’s abilities.
His only managerial experience in English football was at Hull City. The reason for his appointment was that he had most recently managed Strasbourg, a club owned by Chelsea’s parent company BlueCo, where his style of football was considered to be similar to Chelsea’s playing identity.
The early signs under Rosenior were cautiously encouraging. Chelsea stabilised, picked up results, and entered the Champions League round of 16 with their domestic season still very much alive. Then came PSG, and with it, the most sobering week in recent Stamford Bridge memory.
The PSG Humiliation
Paris Saint-Germain scored three goals in the final 20 minutes to beat Chelsea 5-2 in the first leg of their Champions League last-16 game at the Parc des Princes.
The manner of the defeat was as damaging as the scoreline. Chelsea had twice fought back to level, only to concede three times late on.
The second leg brought no redemption. Chelsea exited the Champions League in a two-leg round of 16 tie against PSG, who won 3-0 at Stamford Bridge. The 8-2 aggregate scoreline was Chelsea’s joint-heaviest in Europe.
The cruelty of the evening was concentrated into its opening minutes. Mamadou Sarr, making his debut in the competition, failed to control a long punt forward and allowed Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in to open the scoring after just six minutes.
The numbers under Rosenior made for difficult reading. In 18 matches, Chelsea conceded 28 goals and kept just three clean sheets. The five goals conceded in the first leg were the most they had ever conceded in a Champions League match. Then the eight across both legs is the most in any Champions League tie in the club’s history.
The Qualification Crisis
The European exit would be painful enough in isolation. Chelsea are currently sixth in the Premier League and its odds on the Champions League are getting longer by the day as it looks likely to miss out on qualification.
This would be a major setback. Their recent Premier League form is mixed, earning 8 points from their last five games, including a 4-1 win away at Aston Villa. Results in the weeks since have complicated the picture further.
The week that included the PSG exit also brought a Premier League defeat to Newcastle, compounding what Rosenior acknowledged had been the most sobering period of his tenure at Stamford Bridge.
The ownership model has not helped. The recruitment strategy has drawn a lot of criticism for the long-term contracts they’ve offered players, which lead to a lack of motivation some say.
Rosenior himself will be the fourth permanent managerial appointment since Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital bought the club in May 2022. This rate of turnover makes genuine continuity almost impossible.
The Cole Palmer Question
Hanging over everything is the future of the one player who unambiguously represents what Chelsea could be. Cole Palmer has spent much of the season carrying an injury burden, but when fit and trusted, as he was in the Club World Cup final, he is capable of performances that belong in the very highest company.
Enzo Fernandez is reportedly disappointed by Maresca’s departure and keeping his options open ahead of the summer transfer window. Similar uncertainty has been reported around Palmer, with Real Madrid and Bayern Munich among the clubs credited with interest.
The calculation for Palmer is straightforward. He is 23, in the prime of his career, and wants to compete for the biggest trophies. Chelsea’s failure to mount a genuine title challenge and their exit from the Champions League at the last-16 stage against a side they beat in a cup final just eight months earlier raises legitimate questions about whether the club’s trajectory matches his ambitions.
Keeping him this summer, with or without Champions League football to offer, will be one of the defining tests of the Rosenior project.
What the Road Back Actually Looks Like
Rosenior will be the seventh coach to take charge since BlueCo bought the club in 2022 and the 25th managerial change since the year 2000.
This statistic reads less like bad luck and more like institutional dysfunction. The PSG result did not merely end Chelsea’s Champions League season. It exposed, in the starkest possible terms, the distance between where this club is now and where its resources suggest it should be.
The road back to genuine Champions League contention runs through the next seven Premier League games. Win enough of them, and Chelsea face next season with Europe secured and a platform to rebuild.
Fail, and the questions about Rosenior, about the squad, and about the entire direction of the club under BlueCo will become impossible to ignore. For west London’s most glamorous football club, the margin for error has rarely felt thinner.
