When BlueCo hired Liam Rosenior the intention was to move deeper into a business model that has been heavily criticised for its tech-bro exceptionalism and swaggering, though empty, move-fast-and-break-things mentality.
In this they have been successful, because with Rosenior Chelsea have landed on a head coach who seems to perfectly embody what’s wrong with the project; a lightning rod for all complaints about the wild spending, the over-investment in youth, and the growing realisation that Chelsea are being run as a private-equity venture and nothing more.
That is not Rosenior’s fault. He is not to blame for being inexperienced and seemingly out of his depth. The finger must instead be pointed at the executives who misunderstood football’s complexity, overplayed their hand, and assumed that profitable stasis could be obtained via unbreakable Champions League qualification.
The only remaining question is whether they have been caught out by the sport’s complexity and increasing fan protest or whether they always knew this would happen and simply don’t care, because despite recently posting record-breaking pre-tax losses of £262.4million it is too early to suggest BlueCo’s strategy is failing.
It’s important to understand that for private-equity businesses, posting operating profits is never part of the plan.
The vampiric aim is to hollow out the company, extract maximum wealth from the assets, then sell what’s left at a profit. In other words, BlueCo’s unstated goal is probably to create a bubble of potential value (from high-value assets, the players, on long contracts) via stripping all the copper from the walls (selling the women’s team, the hotels) and then, having artificially made the club look attractive, sell to a new buyer at a cost exceeding what they paid for it (made possible by servicing so many of the ‘upgrades’ via loans taken out in the club’s name).
Next permanent Chelsea manager odds (via BetVictor)
- Filipe Luis - 2/1
- Oliver Glasner - 4/1
- Xavi Hernandez - 5/1
- Andoni Iraola - 6/1
- Cesc Fabregas - 6/1
- Roberto De Zerbi - 6/1
- Marco Silva - 8/1
- Frank Lampard - 8/1
- 12/1 bar
Odds correct at 16:35 BST (15/4/26)
All of which is to say Chelsea isn’t necessarily a football club anymore and most of what we like to talk about is simply bluster… unless, that is, Chelsea are in danger of consistently failing to qualify for the Champions League, because losing that money would likely mean the club fall foul of the Premier League’s regulations. Worse, repeated failure to get into the top five would surely significantly devalue the club to potential buyers, plunging the BlueCo project into difficulty.
That’s why Rosenior has drifted into a new symbolic territory, becoming the manager who reveals the hidden failures of what Chelsea’s owners have tried to do. Just as Enzo Fernandez’s comments during the international break revealed that young ambitious players will inevitably wake up to the BlueCo model and want out, Rosenior’s struggle to create a coherent identity points to a fatal flaw in the team-building part of the idea. Football, it turns out, isn’t as easy to manipulate as Todd Boehly and his mates like to think.
Chelsea appear almost certain to finish outside the top five this season. They have won four of their last 12 matches in all competitions and three of those were against Championship or League One opposition. Putting the 7-0 victory over Port Vale to one side, Chelsea have lost four consecutive games without scoring a single goal. They are a shambles, closer in points to Newcastle in 14th than Liverpool in 5th.
The Athletic report that Chelsea plan to keep Rosenior no matter how this campaign ends but that’s easy to say when fourth spot and an FA Cup winners’ medal are still on the table. If Rosenior cannot arrest the slide and Chelsea end up even lower than sixth, which looks increasingly plausible, then the club will be forced to act – not least because, surely, such a disastrous outcome would trigger a radical change in their overarching strategy.
It seems strange that a private equity firm, which puts optics and mirages at its centre, should misunderstand the importance of psychology in football. Hiring a more established manager, and assembling a more glamorous team, wouldn’t just help everyone at the club align towards a grander mission on the pitch but also help create a higher market price for Chelsea down the line. It certainly wouldn’t be any more expensive, considering around £1.5 billion has already been invested to take the club from third under Thomas Tuchel in 2021/22 to sixth (or worse) in 2025/26.
The descent has been extraordinary when you put it in those terms. Tuchel, having won the Champions League and Club World Cup within his first months in the role, had just completed his first full campaign (third in the league, runners-up in the FA Cup, Champions League quarter-finalists) when BlueCo arrived in May 2022.
It surely cannot be long before Boehly et al. recognise the value of a Tuchel figure. Rosenior is the pinnacle of BlueCo, a concentrated embodiment of the club’s values new and lost. For that reason he might be its final appointment before a change in approach becomes unavoidable. Don’t be surprised if the penny drops as soon as next month.
More from Sporting Life
- Fixtures, results and live scores
- Home of This Week's Acca
- Football and other sports tips
- Download the Sporting Life app
- Podcasts and video content
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.
