Enzo Maresca is out at Chelsea, and already the talk has turned to who will replace him.
Alex Crook of TalkSport, increasingly a well connected insider on the Chelsea beat, has already claimed that Cesc Fabregas is “not a contender” to replace Maresca. He also “ruled out” a move for Roberto De Zerbi, the fiery former Brighton coach now at Marseille.
Oliver Glasner is also not a target, at least according to David Ornstein’s report from earlier this morning.
Romano backs Chelsea to appoint from within BlueCo
Liam Rosenior in a Strasbourg press conference.
Liam Rosenior in a Strasbourg press conference.
With those names being ruled out quickly, the front runner becomes obvious. Liam Rosenior has done well at our sister club Strasbourg, and has long been seen as someone being groomed to take the Chelsea job.
Fabrizio Romano has said “he’s a contender” and that Chelsea are “very, very impressed” with what he’s done in Ligue 1. He notes that Chelsea have a “small shortlist” and that Rosenior is on it.
This opening has probably come too soon for Rosenior compared to in an ideal situation – and there will be a lot of difficulty in smoothing this over with Strasbourg fans if we take their coach mid-season. But with the situation Chelsea are in, it’s hard to see what other direction they go in, especially if they want to make a quick appointment.
In other news…
Enzo Maresca was let go for various reasons, with some well connected people saying it was in part due to a conflict with the medical team. His decisions over Reece James caused a rift.
Things reached breaking point with Maresca in the last few days after a run of bad results, but it seems that things were building in the background for some time before that. The manager had conversations with Man City which Chelsea obviously didn’t take kindly to.