Liam Rosenior to Chelsea: Inside the rise of the new Blues boss after deal from Strasbourg confirmed
Liam Rosenior is the new Chelsea boss as he replaces Enzo Maresca; the young English coach has never managed in the Premier League before having previously coached Derby County, Hull and Strasbourg; Sky Sports speaks to those who have worked and played under Rosenior the coach on his style
Tuesday 6 January 2026 10:40, UK
At the start of 2019, Liam Rosenior sat in a Sky Sports studio and gave an honest assessment about Chelsea's managerial situation.
"The recent history of the club is: if things go wrong and things start to not go how we want them to, we change the manager," the then-pundit said on Sky Sports' The Debate show.
"There comes a point where you say: that's our manager for the next two years. The reason we brought in that manager is to build something."
An incredible situation has come full circle: Rosenior is now that man at Stamford Bridge, tasked with stabilising another rocky ship. This is still an era where Chelsea are hiring and firing head coaches at will, even after the Roman Abramovich era that Rosenior was alluding to.
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Todd Boehly may not have the same ruthless nature Abramovich had but Rosenior will still be Chelsea's fifth permanent head coach in nearly five years of the BlueCo regime.
Thomas Tuchel lasted 100 days of the Boehly era, Graham Potter got just over 200. Mauricio Pochettino was only afforded a season while Enzo Maresca didn't get two, despite delivering two trophies.
Rosenior comes into the Chelsea picture on a very different footing to his BlueCo predecessors. With his former clubs being Hull, Derby and Strasbourg, he doesn't have the stature of a Tuchel or Pochettino, nor the Premier League experience that Potter had.
He is more in line with Maresca, who also had success in the Championship before moving to west London. But the Italian was hired as a Pep Guardiola acolyte, following the successes of Mikel Arteta and Vincent Kompany at other top clubs.
The closest Rosenior has come to Guardiola so far is reading his book during his Hull City playing days.
"I remember when we were at Hull, he was reading Pep's books when we were like still in our late 20s," says Curtis Davies to Sky Sports, who played with Rosenior for the Tigers and Derby, then under him at the Rams.
"He started studying the game more and understanding why certain tactics work, why other tactics don't. He's just a very meticulous person."
Rosenior's obvious progression towards coaching was noticed by Brighton, his final club before hanging up his boots, who then took him on as assistant boss for the Under-21s team - led by Simon Rusk.
"What I really respected about Liam was he had made his mind up about coaching," Rusk tells Sky Sports. "He probably could have played on a little bit longer, but he was clear. 'No, no, I need to practise coaching'.
"One trait I could see very early on: he was going to be a courageous coach. Like all successful coaches, you need that element of single-mindedness."
Courage is something that has followed Rosenior around all his career. His managerial projects included working with Derby during their lowest financial ebbs.
He also managed Hull City who have had five managers in four years - sound familiar, Chelsea fans? - and nearly made the play-offs when the club has mostly finished in the bottom half of the table.
But perhaps his most daring feat came at Strasbourg, as a young British coach abroad, which is very much a rarity in the modern game, and nearly making the Champions League.
All throughout his coaching career so far, Rosenior has impressed with his tactical nature. It was noticed at Derby that while Wayne Rooney was the frontman, Rosenior was the flair behind him.
"If Wayne Rooney gives you a one-liner about a certain way to play a pass or so, you're going to hold on to it because it's Wayne Rooney," recalls Davies, who was a senior leader in that Derby team.
"But what he had in the background was a Liam Rosenior that was meticulous to the detail. Wayne might want you to do a certain pass and do it in a certain way, but the other 90 per cent of the breakdown of why we're doing this pass, why it's going into that space, that was all Liam.
"He was literally down to the finest details. Maybe why it hasn't worked out for Wayne as much is because he was spoiled by the fact that he had Liam in his first job. Wayne's had a lot of coaching staff, but no-one as meticulous as Liam."
All that has contributed to an overall tactical philosophy as a head coach, but what does that look like?
"His teams are willing to play under high pressure in a possession-based game, which is really nice to watch and pleasing on the eye," says Rusk.
"If he wants to play it from the back, you do it his way," adds Davies. "His big thing is: he'd rather do it his way because he knows why it's going to work.
But Rosenior is not wedded to one style, he has the ability to shake things up last minute. "He's happy to adapt," says Davies.
"You can basically go through the training week, go through four days of prep towards a game and then he can throw it out the window during the game because it gets a little bit difficult.
"He's very much: if I've set you up for this for the whole week, then I choose to make the change, then that means I've made a mistake and I'll take that on myself.
"But if 10 out of the 11 players want to get on the ball and want to start using it, and there's one player that keeps wrecking it, that's going to cause problems for him. He'll drag you off it and make sure you know why you've been dragged."
'He would be clear on non-negotiables'
Of course, doing it at Hull, Derby and Strasbourg is one thing - replicating it at Chelsea is a very different proposition.
At Stamford Bridge, he will be dealing with some of the best players in the world in their positions, notably Cole Palmer, Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez.
"You need discipline and Liam's roots are one of hard work," says Rusk. "He was an incredibly hard-working player in 90 plus minutes in the game and would push his limits. And without any shadow of a doubt, he's adapted that into his role as a coach.
"What Liam would be clear about would be his non-negotiables. As much as he would support and nurture players, whether it be young or old, he would have a very clear set of standards that he expects. And I think that no doubt will be part of his success. Liam's a good person and he'll have high standards."
Davies even said Rosenior got respect at Derby through his tactical vision. "As a manager, or a coach, it's always easier to gain that respect when they see a style," he recalls.
"That's the way he got the respect over from the older players. We all believed in the way he wanted to do things and thought it was the right way for us to play with the personnel that we'd got in."
But one thing that works in Rosenior's favour is his record with younger players, which has followed him around his whole career.
At Brighton, he helped develop the careers of Viktor Gyokeres and Robert Sanchez. He took on the likes of Fabio Carvalho and Liam Delap via loan spells and made them shine in the Championship at Hull.
At Derby, they were forced into giving over a dozen youth team players their debuts due to financial restraints, and the Rams were still competitive in the second tier.
And at Strasbourg, he has been credited with the rapid development of Andrey Santos and Martial Godo, who struggled at Fulham but has been revived under Rosenior. So imagine what he can do with the likes of Estevao?
"In terms of the young lads, he's got that good, fine balance of 'tough love' and 'arm around you'," says Davies.
"He's never going to be a shout-a-holler that literally bullies a player and shouts at him constantly, thinking that's going to get the best out of him.
"But he'll lean more towards putting his arm around someone, going through their clips maybe, and understanding, letting them understand what they've done wrong.
"Then, if they do it two or three times more, then there'll be that sharp voice that kind of gives them a kick up the backside. So he's very well-balanced."
The other boost Rosenior has in his corner is a previous working relationship with some of Chelsea's sporting directors. At Brighton, he worked alongside Paul Winstanley and Sam Jewell - the latter was previously the Seagulls' Under-23s recruitment chief, but is Director of Global Recruitment at Stamford Bridge.
"They're just good people, they work hard," says Rusk about Chelsea's sporting directors. "They want to work in an environment which is elite and push things as healthily as it can to its limits."
Is Rosenior a 'yes-man'?
But one of the questions following Rosenior to Chelsea is whether the young English coach is a 'yes-man'?
Some have claimed Maresca's Chelsea departure arose from him coming out of his shell as a 'yes-man' after winning a few trophies.
"I don't think Chelsea are naive enough to stick a 'yes-man' in the job," says Davies. "They know they've got to protect their value as a Premier League club by hopefully finishing in the Champions League.
"And Liam's not naive. He's not got an ego and a chip on his shoulder. He's not going to be crying because people don't think he's the right man for the job. What he will do is roll up his sleeves and show you why he's the right man for the job."
After all, there are signs that Rosenior will have his say, in the same way Maresca tried to do before his exit, if that Sky Sports Debate Show is anything to go by.
"Antonio Conte was so outspoken in his frustration at the time, now you're bringing in another manager with a completely different philosophy," said Rosenior on the show seven years ago.
"Are you going to back him or say that's not working and jump onto the next manager, who's going to say: 'I need this to get this player and this player'?
"It's not going to work that way, there is going to come a point where you go through difficult times in order to get long-term success."
