The real reasons Chelsea are in crisis – and it’s not Liam Rosenior

What a difference nine months makes. Rewind back to July 2025 and Chelsea were being crowned champions of the world , having beaten Champions League winners PSG with a dominant display that offered plenty of promise for the future. While the merits of that trophy can be debated, the manner of the win was encouraging for the fans, players and the club hierarchy, justifying the entry into the Club World Cup, while showing that the Blues can go toe-to-toe with the best sides in the world.

Questions remained, but Enzo Maresca and his players had done their part at the end of a season that had seen triumph in the Conference League and a top-four finish. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was something to build on. Fast forward eight months and the world champions faced their European counterparts once more, this time in a two-legged tie in the Champions League.

Chelsea competed well for the best part of 74 minutes, but a late collapse took the tie away from them before they were blown away in the home leg to fall to an 8-2 aggregate loss . Just over a month later and the Blues’ hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League now look slim, with the 1-0 loss to Manchester United meaning they sit 10 points behind the Red Devils. They could also go seven points behind fifth-placed Liverpool if Arne Slot’s side win the Merseyside derby.

Chelsea's loss to Man Utd leaves them four points behind fifth-placed Liverpool, who have a game in hand to come in the Merseyside derby (Reuters) Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior said that the result against Man Utd leaves his side with “a mountain to climb”, and though he insisted that “it’s not insurmountable”, it now feels like the Blues are once again teetering on the edge of a crisis. And while Rosenior will face plenty of criticism for a string of poor performances that have yielded four losses in a row without scoring in the league for the first time since 1998, it is too easy to direct anger at a manager who is becoming a scapegoat for problems far beyond his control. Rosenior remains the face of Chelsea for the media and fans, and it is unavoidable that he’ll face anger and criticism from sections of the fanbase, though in reality, few of the problems at the club are his doing, and nor can he remedy them yet.