Liam Rosenior said he had reached an agreement with Chelsea to become their next manager. Photo: AFP
LONDON:
Liam Rosenior said Chelsea’s dramatic fightback from two goals down to beat West Ham 3-2 on Saturday showed his side have something “special”.
Rosenior’s side trailed to first-half goals from Jarrod Bowen and Crysencio Summerville at Stamford Bridge.
But Chelsea ignored the half-time jeers from their angry fans, staging a brilliant revival after the break.
Joao Pedro reduced the deficit before Marc Cucurella headed the equaliser.
For the first time in the Premier League era, Chelsea came from two down at half-time to win thanks to their captain as Fernandez netted in stoppage-time.
“My biggest learning is there’s a spirit, a fight and a resilience in this group that I really, really like,” Rosenior said.
“We don’t have many training sessions, but we spoke about reacting positively to setbacks. All of that was there in the second half, which wasn’t there in the first half.
“We’ve had so many games in a short space of time. I was fearful of a lack of energy and not energy or lack of application, but I felt our decision-making was really poor in the first half. When to keep the ball, when we pressed, we were just too far off it.
“West Ham were by far the better team. We had a reaction at half-time. The reaction in the second half tells me that we’ve got something really, really special here if I can utilise the squad in the correct way.”
Chelsea climbed to fourth in the Premier League as Rosenior became only the fourth English manager to win his first three Premier League games after Bobby Gould, Sam Allardyce and Craig Shakespeare.
Rosenior has overseen six wins from seven games in all competitions since arriving from Strasbourg to replace Enzo Maresca.
The highlight of Rosenior’s impressive start had come on Wednesday when the Blues fought back from 2-1 down to beat Napoli 3-2 in Italy, securing a place in the Champions League last 16.
But this was arguably even more eye-catching than that success, given how Rosenior turned the tide after Chelsea’s wretched first half.
Rosenior’s decision to make three half-time substitutions proved decisive as Chelsea stormed back.
“I thought individually, collectively, our first-half performance was nowhere near the level that it needed to be and should be,” he said.
“The individuals came off and then people will look at them. That wasn’t on them. It was a collective. There was a collective poor performance in the first half.
“Those players know with me, I make early changes. It doesn’t mean that all of a sudden they’re out of my thoughts at all.
“It was just a really lethargic performance in the first half, but the second half was everything I wanted to see.”
