Liam Rosenior was a study in quiet exasperation when he walked into the press room at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday. He had just seen yet another Chelsea player act, yet again, like a spoiled child and get yet another red card that threw away yet another chance of three points.
Earning a few hundred grand a week can’t buy you brains, unfortunately, nor indeed can it purchase you a sense of responsibility to your team and your supporters, and Pedro Neto’s second-half sending off against Arsenal stood out for being particularly stupid.
Two yellow cards in three minutes, one for complaining bitterly and persistently about a foul that never happened, and one for an absurdly mistimed tackle on Gabriel Martinelli, is some going, even by Chelsea’s standards.
Not content with costing his team – which was playing well – the chance of overhauling Arsenal’s slender lead, Neto then confronted the fourth official on his way back to the tunnel, which may earn him an extra suspension. He’ll also miss Chelsea’s critical clash against top-four rivals Aston Villa on Wednesday. Smart work all round.
None of this is on Rosenior, the Chelsea head coach, who inherited this shower of over-entitled, under-performing strutters from Enzo Maresca. Maresca was also sent off in the 2-1 win over Liverpool in October, by the way, so that makes a total of 10 red cards this season.
Anyway, Rosenior was asked if the answer to the club’s epidemic of indiscipline was greater punishments from the club. ‘There’s something deep-lying that we need to get to the bottom of,’ Rosenior said. ‘It’s not about the punishment. It’s about finding the reason why.’
Pedro Neto became the ninth player to be sent off for Chelsea this season – in addition to Enzo Maresca’s red card for celebrating the win over Liverpool in October
I can tell him the reason why and I can tell him where to look for his answers. Inconveniently, it starts right at the top of the club, with co-owner Todd Boehly. If you want to talk about irresponsibility, he’s in the frame, too.
Remember when he and Clearlake Capital took over in 2022 and Boehly told a ‘thought leaders’ conference in New York that he hoped ‘the Premier League takes a little bit of a lesson from American sports’?
His main idea, stunning in its out-of-the-box originality, was that English football should stage an All-Star Game. I liked Jurgen Klopp’s reaction to that the best. ‘Does he want to bring the Harlem Globetrotters as well?’ the then-Liverpool manager asked.
By then, Boehly had appointed himself interim sporting director and embarked on a wild spending spree. A few days ago, he admitted that he took the role ‘having no idea what made a good football player, but knowing that Marc Cucurella, if Man City want him, I want him… it was really simple that way’.
That’s where the culture of arrogance starts at Chelsea. Right there. Right at the top. With the thought leaders. The culture of not being accountable. The culture of thinking there are no consequences for your actions. And it feeds down.
Boehly the thought leader spent more than £250million on players while having no idea what made a good one. Among them was Wesley Fofana, a centre half who cost £73m from Leicester City, and is, inevitably, one of the players who have seen red this season.
You want to know something else about Fofana: he’s got more points on his driving licence than league appearances for Chelsea. More points on his driving licence than Chelsea have got points in the Premier League this season. Seriously. At the last count, it was up to 50.
‘Repeat offender’ doesn’t get close to explaining the moronic idiocy of this guy. It’s so ridiculous, it’s almost funny. Then you see dashcam footage of Fofana driving his Lamborghini on the hard shoulder, the kind of driving that makes it a miracle he hasn’t killed anyone yet, and it feels different. And you expect a man like that to take responsibility on a football pitch?
Among Todd Boehly’s signings was Wesley Fofana, a centre half who cost £73m from Leicester City, and is, inevitably, one of the players who have seen red this season
But then Chelsea have a recent culture of rewarding players for repugnant behaviour. Take Enzo Fernandez. The Argentine, a World Cup winner, was caught on film chanting a racist song about France players and their heritage in the summer of 2024.
Chelsea’s reaction? You guessed it: he regularly wears the captain’s armband. Not exactly a conventional way to teach someone about accountability for their actions, but it has been the Chelsea way. And it gets paid forward in player behaviour.
Fernandez has been booked seven times in the Premier League this season. On Sunday, his yellow card was for slamming the ball into the ground in a hissy fit about a decision. He is lucky Rosenior was not in charge when he sang his song. ‘If any player or any coach or any manager is ever found guilty of racism, they shouldn’t be in the game,’ the Chelsea head coach said recently.
For now, though, Rosenior’s playing whack-a-mole. Every week, he has a new fool to deal with. It wasn’t just Neto and Fernandez stamping their feet as if football owed them something better on Sunday. Throw Robert Sanchez into that mix, too.
In the era of the ball-playing goalkeeper, Sanchez is so bad with his feet that he fits the cliche of a player whose second touch is a tackle. He fits the Chelsea player template, too: it’s always somebody else’s fault.
So when Jurrien Timber scored what turned out to be Arsenal’s winner midway through the second half, Sanchez led Chelsea’s furious protests. Replays showed there was no foul. Chelsea were protesting because Arsenal had the temerity to score.
Sanchez was protesting because he had been found wanting yet again. He protested so much that Neto believed he must be protesting about something real and got himself his first booking. For protesting about nothing. It’s Chelsea in microcosm. An inability to take responsibility: it spreads like a contagion.
Rosenior’s a smart guy. He must know all of this. He must know Chelsea can’t keep signing players like Fofana and Alejandro Garnacho, who seeps negative energy from almost every pore. He must know that, at some point, if they want to win the league again, they have to stop being a trading house and start signing players who are leaders.
The culture of arrogance starts right at the top. With the thought leaders. The culture of not being accountable. The culture of thinking there are no consequences for your actions
Enzo Fernandez was filmed singing a racist song with his Argentina team-mates – Chelsea reacted by making him captain a month later
He must know that Chelsea pioneering the idea of selling their women’s team to their own parent company, BlueCo, for approximately £200m in 2024 to comply with Premier League Profit and Sustainability Rules might be legal but is hardly to be admired.
He knows that. But he also knows that Chelsea have five sporting directors and two co-owners and if something goes wrong, they sack the head coach. No accountability. No responsibility. It’s the culture.
All hail Hill Dickinson
I’m a well-established stadium nerd so it’s probably not a surprise to discover that I found my first visit to Everton’s new ground last week life-enhancing.
Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium is proof that not all modern football stadia have to be bowls devoid of character
The construction and design of Hill Dickinson Stadium at the heart of Liverpool’s maritime heritage down on the docks puts it right at the heart of the city’s cultural identity, which is exactly where a football club belongs.
Everton also deserve immense credit for the spectacular design of the stadium and the care they have taken to preserve the remnants of the docks history all around the arena. It’s proof that not all modern football stadia have to be bowls devoid of character.
Take a trip there if you can. It’s good for the soul.
