Despite having only taken over as the new Chelsea head coach in January, Liam Rosenior has made quite a big impact in his first Premier League job. Unfortunately for him, not all of it has been positive.
While results started well, with six wins out of his opening seven games, things have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks. After losing to Everton 3-0, the Blues have now lost four games in a row for the first time since 1993.
While this poor form will upset Chelsea fans, Rosenior has perhaps caused a bigger stir with some of his comments and behaviour away from the pitch.
Rosenior's Bizarre Quotes as Chelsea Manager Draws Criticism
Upon taking over, Rosenior was ridiculed over his infamous quote: "In English, the word ‘manage’, if you split the two words, it’s man (and) age – you’re ageing men.”
Since then, he's had a few more gaffes. Notably, he was seen handing out a note to Alejandro Garnacho late on in the Champions League, despite his team being 8-2 down to Paris Saint-Germain.
Chelsea have also made headlines for gathering around the ball before kick-off, on which he oddly explained:
“My players made the decision that they wanted to be around the ball, to respect the ball and show unity and leadership.”
When referee Paul Tierney stepped in the middle of the huddle, Rosenior voiced his anger, saying, “I didn’t speak to Paul today or his officials. I thought it wasn’t the right thing to do today. But I’ll be speaking to PGMOL.
“I’ll be speaking to the refs and just trying to get an understanding of why that happened today.”
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Kevin Kilbane Slams Rosenior's Antics
Amid all the unusual headlines, one of Rosenior's former Hull City teammates has claimed the 41-year-old is now 'unrecognisable' in his role as Chelsea boss. Kevin Kilbane told Off The Ball:
“I played with Liam at Hull and I got on well with Liam, he used to tell some great stories of Roy Keane when he was his manager at Ipswich.
“And you see the way he is now, to me, he’s unrecognisable to the player and the person I knew. It’s like he’s swallowed a psychologist’s manual or a sporting mentor’s memoir. To me, everything he says is waffle, drivel, nothing.
“It’s like he tries to write as many quotes down as possible and tries to get them into a pre-match talk or post-match whenever addressing the media. If I’m a player being asked to do that huddle, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I was a Chelsea player.”
Kilbane played over 100 times for the Republic of Ireland but spent his entire career in England, lining up for the likes of West Brom, Sunderland, and Everton. He joined Hull in 2009, sharing the pitch with the former right-back on seven occasions across the 2010/11 season.