Liam Rosenior insists Chelsea can win all six of their remaining Premier League clashes to qualify for the Champions League – and has urged his players to kickstart this bid for perfection by dropping their egos in their Saturday night showdown with Manchester United.
The pressure is being piled on Rosenior from fans, though the Blues boss answered this by saying he was ‘questioned after three minutes of joining this club, let alone three months’.
He is adamant they can still secure their top target of a top-five finish, despite sitting four points shy of Liverpool heading into this weekend, and explained how Chelsea’s greatest-ever players such as John Terry and Frank Lampard played for the team rather than themselves.
‘That’s the great thing about the quality we have in this team – we are capable,’ Rosenior said when asked if they can go six for six. ‘But to be capable is one thing. To go and produce it is another. Time is running out.
‘We need to make sure we get each performance as perfect as possible in every aspect of the game, and in the knowledge that if we do that, we have the potential to win every game between now and the rest of the season.’
Rosenior listed his four core principles for tough times – ‘simplicity, hard work, humility and lack of ego’ – and added: ‘When you see the lack of ego in this team when it was at its best, with John (Terry), with Frank (Lampard), with Didier (Drogba), they were a team. It wasn’t a team of egos. That was a team of big personalities who fought for the shirt. That’s what we need to show now.’
Marc Guehi scores Man City’s second in Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge on Sunday
Chelsea are still backing Rosenior, even as they face the prospect of missing out on the Champions League, which would be a failure for all concerned at the club.
The Englishman insists the outside noise does not bother him, as he said: ‘I was questioned after three minutes of joining this club, let alone three months.
‘It’s why I’m here. The noise? If I couldn’t deal with the noise, I wouldn’t be sat in this chair. I’m aware. It’s absolutely fine. I’m confident in our ability as a football club. I’m confident in the project. I’m confident knowing what we want to do in the future. I’m confident in this job.
‘I don’t think there’s a manager in world football who hasn’t gone through a time like this at a certain stage of the season and it’s up to me, the club and the team to show what we’re about.’
Chelsea and Strasbourg supporters are coming together to stage a protest march outside of Stamford Bridge before the visit of United. Rosenior, having swapped one club for the other in January, said: ‘In terms of how it affects me or the team, I have to focus on what I can control. That’s all I can do.
‘In Strasbourg, we had fan protests, and I understood their point of view and their perspective, and what we wanted to do was show them that we give everything on the pitch for that club. It’s exactly the same being at this club.’
