Football to the accompaniment of LEGO. What Liam Rosenior has already brought to Chelsea

On January 8 of this year, “Chelsea” got another new coach. The London club, which was famous for frequent changes of mentors even during the time of Roman Abramovich, continues this kind of “tradition” already with the American owners Todd Boeli and Begdad Egbali. This time, instead of Enzo Maresca, the “blues” called 41-year-old Liam Rosenior, who previously worked in France with Londoners-friendly “Strasbourg”. And the newly minted mentor, judging by reports in the British media, in a week with a small amount of work with the first team of “Chelsea” has already managed to surprise both football experts and numerous fans of the “blues”.

Let’s just start with a conundrum: Where else would you see Cole Palmer and, say, Rhys James in the same room building a LEGO set? So that there are not too many answer options, let’s immediately give two versions to choose from: a) nowhere, it’s someone’s joke; b) at the training of “Chelsea” under the leadership of the new head coach Liam Rosenior.

One can only applaud the one who really believed and decided to lean his choice in favor of the second version. In fact, the updated training program with which Liam Rosenor came to Chelsea is significantly different from what the players of the top London club are used to.

Getty Images/Global Images Ukraine. Chelsea players got the chance to compete with each other in the speed of collecting LEGOs Rosenior really organized a competition among football players on assembling a LEGO constructor at the club base. Obviously, this is devoid of any football logic, but the new coaching staff decided that such measures are extremely useful for increasing the level of team cohesion. In addition to the development of the effect of mutual aid, when football players found themselves in situations where they need to react quickly themselves and help their fellow competitors, Rosenior decided that such measures would help to recreate a good atmosphere in the team. Liam’s similar methods used to work perfectly in “Strasbourg”, where the players simply adored him.

Liam Rosenior made his debut as Chelsea manager with a stunning 5-1 FA Cup third-round victory over Charlton. However, this was followed by a dramatic defeat in the first leg of the semi-final of the English League Cup against Arsenal (2:3), which to some extent cast doubt on Rosenjor’s ability to quickly turn the situation around for the better. And there is simply nowhere to drag Liam and his assistants, because after the 21st round of the EPL, Chelsea was much closer to the middle of the table in terms of points than to the Champions League zone, which is so desired by all the giants.

It is important, as noted by English commentators, that Rosenior did not wish to destroy everything that worked during Mareska’s time. Liam, on the contrary, showed signs of a desire to blend into the team as little as possible, without radically changing the methods of the previous mentor, from whom he took an example in many ways in his career earlier. The key difference between Rosenior and Mareska is that the current “Chelsea” coach pays a lot of attention directly to the human factor. Liam believes that proper communication with the wards can play a much more important role than spending hours on tactics. Back in Strasbourg, the coach was distinguished by an almost Socratic approach to working with his wards. “If I respect them, they will respect me,” Rosenier declared. What’s more, the manager even managed to win over the vast majority of Strasbourg fans before they felt betrayed by Liam’s decision to move to London mid-season, although that’s a topic for a whole other discussion…

Rosenior begins his work at Chelsea by sharing space, time and intentions. Liam immediately made it clear to Palmer that he was not going to put him on the field from game to game, letting him play ninety minutes out of ninety, thereby exposing him to a high risk of further injury. In personal conversations with Robert Sanchez, the coach explained, as British insiders write, that the goalkeeper’s mistakes directly affect him as the head coach, making it clear that the goalkeeper must not be nervous, but must remain calm even when he plays unsuccessful matches.

To the 18-year-old Brazilian prodigy Estevao Willian, who arrived in London last summer from Palmeiras for 45 million euros, Rosenor also managed to explain that difficulties due to the language barrier at the beginning of the journey in a new place are absolutely normal. And that the winger does not need to worry when he is not included in the starting line-up, because it has happened before and will continue to happen until Estevao fully adapts to the English Premier League and Chelsea’s style of play. 24-year-old Moises Caicedo Rosenior is aiming to become a new Makelele or Kante for the Blues and spend at least the next ten years at Stamford Bridge at the highest level. Well, Liam also managed to exchange thoughts with Wesley Fofana, urging the defender to try to get out of his tactical comfort zone as often as possible, especially when he has to face such strong opponents as Arsenal.

It is obvious that the new coach of “Chelsea” immediately tried to influence almost every one of his wards. With minor gestures, signs of attention and simply frankly strange innovations in training, Rosenor seems to want to achieve the main thing – to restore a precious sense of calm within the team. This is extremely important for a team that has to respond correctly to the dismissal of the previous coach in the middle of the season and not to doubt their own strength and abilities, facing partly inflated expectations against the background of winning the 2025 Club World Cup.

With Liam Rosenior, Chelsea’s future begins with every footballer managing to rediscover the joy of football. Like kids playing LEGO, and in this case it’s not a metaphor at all.