Decision to hire an inexperienced manager has backfired badly and club’s owners will have to reassess their approach
There was symbolism to the Chelsea project reaching a reckoning at the Amex Stadium. Behdad Eghbali, one of the club’s co-owners, looked ashen-faced in the directors’ box. Enzo Fernández stared into the distance. Liam Rosenior apologised to the few supporters left in the away end and then went on to rip into his players for their performance during the team’s latest humbling by Brighton.
Rosenior’s position as head coach looked untenable long before Chelsea’s fifth straight league defeat was over. The optics were harsh. As a measure of where Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital’s BlueCo consortium have struggled since buying Chelsea in 2022, it does not get much starker than them having a losing record against Brighton, given how often they have nabbed one of Tony Bloom’s players or staff members.
Part of the problem with trying to follow Brighton’s data path is there is no way of replicating Bloom’s closely guarded analytics model. But there is another core element missing. The data-led recruitment at Chelsea has been relentless, causing a constant churn. They have scoured the globe for young players and handed out heavily incentivised wages, and there is a certain logic to the plan. Carried out properly, it ends with a brilliant team developing together in a sustainable way, led by a clever coach flourishing in collaboration with a multi-pronged recruitment department.
