Liam Rosenior hoped that this international break would offer a chance to step back and start a reset at Chelsea. It was the first time, he remarked on Friday, that he was able to provide two coaching sessions in a single week. But any plans of instilling calm, after the team’s collapse in form, have been overshadowed by off-field fire fighting, where his vice captain, Enzo Fernández, provides the accelerant.
Fernández was punished on Friday for making public comments that cast doubt over his future, needling the fear that key players were losing faith in the club’s direction. He was told of his sanction an hour before Rosenior spoke to the media, that he would be dropped for the FA Cup match against Port Vale and the visit of Manchester City in the Premier League next week.
The 25-year-old’s comments, in which he said he “didn’t know” if he would be at the club next season before, on two separate occasions, suggesting he would like to live in Madrid one day, formed part of a two-week series of mini-referenda of the Chelsea project, as the club’s players were asked about their feelings on international duty about the direction the club is taking.
Fernández has been one of Chelsea’s better players, scoring eight goals in the Premier League this seasonAFP
Moises Caicedo, the Ecuador midfielder, had initially hit the right notes, saying he wanted to become a “legend” at the club, but then told Spanish publication AS: “I have a contract, but we’ll see what the future holds. Let’s see what surprises await us. You never know in football, don’t you think?”
Along with personal doubts cast by Fernández, Marc Cucurella, the defender, told The Athletic he felt the 8-2 aggregate defeat by PSG left the players “discouraged” about the club’s project, and its focus on signing young players. He, it appears, has escaped sanction — perhaps because his critique was geared towards wanting the team to improve, as opposed to creating doubt over his own situation.
For Rosenior, this has been a challenge to his authority and so a strong reaction to Fernández is not a surprise. He was keen to stress that his ban was a collective call from the powerbrokers at Stamford Bridge, but it was also necessary to stamp his authority. “How you act is really important for the future,” he said.
But what now for Fernández? Precedent may suggest this is the end of the road at Stamford Bridge, given Mohamed Salah’s example at Liverpool. Fernández’s agent, Javier Pastore, has subsequently criticised this punishment, telling The Athletic that it is “completely unfair”. But how an exit would actually transpire is not obvious and there is wider context too.
Senior players like Fernández and Cucurella stepping out of line has given the under-fire Rosenior yet another headacheGetty
As The Times reported last month, it is not clear that his overtures to Madrid are necessarily reciprocated, certainly when Chelsea would surely want to avoid a book loss on their accounts if they had to sell, which would therefore require a fee at least in the region of £80million. Rosenior himself stressed this was not the end for Fernández, and it is worth highlighting that the club had been negotiating a contract renewal. His agent, Pastore, noted too that he feels that his client “deserves much more” than what he is earning. But he has burned bridges and how supporters react will be telling. Some, as Enzo Maresca has been cast in hindsight, may view him as a martyr for the greater cause of forcing change, though many others will take a very dim look at such public disloyalty at a critical point in the season.
But however you look at it, this is still a damaging moment for the perception of Chelsea and their project, overseen by the BlueCo consortium. Fernández is the club’s vice captain — a title of which he has not, for now, been stripped — and was publicly dressed down for essentially wanting to jump ship.
That is not a ringing endorsement of the vessel, nor its direction. That he is vice captain in the first place is a point of contention, given he also had no punishment for singing a racist song, which upset his team-mates, in the summer of 2024.
Such scenarios only cause faith to be lost on the outside and the impression is that those in the dressing room feel that way too. Throw in the defeat by PSG, four straight league defeats and an ailing pursuit of Champions League qualification, and it feels like the Chelsea project is fraying at the seams.
Restoring faith is not straightforward from this point and it is possible the message might be getting through. The club need to convince their supporters that other key players are not eyeing the exit door and Rosenior hinted that contract renewals are set to follow.
“You’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks in terms of the commitment of the players to this project.” But he also suggested change may be on the horizon in recruitment. The coach said he wanted to “bring in players with emotional stability, good characters who in difficult moments, can understand what it takes to win in those difficult moments.” Asked if that meant a change in approach, he added: “You’ll see in the actions that we take rather than the words that I speak now. There are a lot of conversations about how we can move things at a faster pace forward to be where we want to be.”
Fundamentally, though, faith can only be restored by improvements on the field. That might be way the door has stayed open to Fernández, who is a key player they will now miss for a huge game with City.
“One of the things I want my players and staff to do is just ignore that noise,” he said. “Noise is noise. There is a perception at the moment that is not reflecting reality. My record in the Premier League since I joined the club, we are fourth in the league.
“There is a noise around the football club that we are in crisis, that I am out of my depth, that I talk nonsense, I know all of the noise. It doesn’t affect what is inside of here and that is what the players need to know as well.”