Liam Rosenior explained the origin story of his football philosophy when he recalled how his dad, Leroy, played out-from-the-back tactics with Torquay United in League Two back in the early 2000s, before it was cool – “a style of football I still believe in,” Rosenior said.
This is the promise he has made to Chelsea fans. “I want us to play high-tempo, aggressive, front-foot football,” Rosenior said in his first interview with the club. “I want the fans at home to be off their seat in the first 10 minutes and feel like it’s wave after wave.”
Rosenior arrives in West London with a relatively lightweight CV – a couple of years managing Hull City and a couple of years at the BlueCo-owned Strasbourg – but a big reputation in the game for being a likeable man and a very astute coach. “Incredible,” was Wayne Rooney’s verdict after working with Rosenior at Derby County. “As good a coach as I’ve worked with.”
Plaudits have come from players, too. Ben Chilwell is at Strasbourg this season and said Rosenior is “destined for the very top”. Chelsea midfielder Andrey Santos also worked with Rosenior at the French club and described him as “special”, though perhaps he wouldn’t have said anything else about the incoming manager at Stamford Bridge.
What will Chelsea look like under Rosenior? In a comparison which might not elicit a tingle down the spine, there is something of Graham Potter in the way he is tactically flexible, prepared to play either three at the back or four depending on the opposition. Another comparison is with Enzo Maresca, who often used one of Malo Gusto or Marc Cucurella as an attacking full-back running through the middle of the pitch, a ploy Rosenior has also used at Strasbourg.
As well as his dad, Rosenior named his former manager Brendan Rodgers as an inspiration, as well as Pep Guardiola, and Rosenior’s tactics share some clear hallmarks with the king of juego de posicion.
Rosenior’s fundamentals are clear: he asks his goalkeeper to play out from the back, demands which will put Robert Sanchez’s footwork to the test at Stamford Bridge. His defenders draw the opposition’s press towards them and then pass through the lines to set off attacking moves. Two players, usually one winger and one full-back, will hold position on the extremities of the pitch to stretch the game, allowing midfielders space to advance and support the sole striker.
Stats from the French league this season point to how Rosenior drills his team. Strasbourg’s goalkeeper, Mike Penders, has played the second-fewest long balls among keepers in Ligue 1, and as a team they have attempted the fewest cross-field switches, preferring more secure, short passes. In the final third they have been safe with the ball too, sending in the second-fewest crosses and recording the highest expected goals per shot – meaning they don’t try speculative efforts but prefer to wait patiently for a clear sight of goal.
His last season at Hull can be seen in different ways: on the one hand, Rosenior led the club to seventh in the league, just outside the play-offs, their highest finish since being relegated from the Premier League in 2017. But he ultimately departed after a difference of opinion over playing style, with Hull’s hierarchy considering him too cautious.
Hull ranked fourth in the Championship for possession but were middle of the pack for chance creation, and while Strasbourg have been easy on the eye under Rosenior, moving the ball slickly from back to front, they have been similarly mediocre when it comes to taking shots on goal. This, Chelsea hope, will change with the quality of players now at his disposal.
There are other reasons to believe Rosenior can be successful at Stamford Bridge. A strength of Strasbourg was set-pieces, with the best record in Ligue 1 last season, a facet of the game never before so important in the Premier League. And Strasbourg’s seventh-placed finish came while working with the youngest squad in Europe – a natural parallel with Chelsea, the youngest in the Premier League.
There is a bleakness in the way Rosenior was gouged out of Chelsea’s partner team without resistance, an appointment which undermined any sense of Strasbourg as an independent club with the authority to hire and retain its own players and staff. It is perhaps a portent for the direction of modern football.
But, equally, his promotion inside BlueCo can still be celebrated. Rosenior is a rare prospect: a young British coach with a clear idea and a platform to show it, a tactics nerd with glasses and a whiteboard filled with world-class players, a Black footballer given the chance to be a Black manager at the top of the game. He deserves time and trust to implement his vision, although he will know both are in limited supply at this level. Time will tell whether he is successful, but if he commits his promise of front-foot football, it will be a fun ride finding out.
