That was quite some turnaround by Chelsea after a truly awful first half. Here’s hoping Liam Rosenior continues to get it very wrong and then very right…
Given the noises made by Enzo Maresca’s entourage in what became a petty war of words with BlueCo via the media upon his departure from Chelsea, it’s hard to be too critical of Liam Rosenior for making several changes from the Blues’ excellent victory over Napoli on Wednesday for the visit of West Ham at Stamford Bridge.
Presumably, like Maresca, he’s been strongly advised – in the same way a mob boss might advise a shopkeeper to pay them protection money – to rotate his squad readily amid talk of red zones and increased chance of injury. But he’s got to be smarter about it.
A press conference or interview rarely goes by without him hailing one or more members of his squad as an “oustanding” player or talent, depending on their relative inexperience. He insisted just before this game that Liam Delap is a “very, very, very good striker”, genuinely catching himself and adding the extra “very” as if Delap might read into just two of them as evidence of his lack of belief in him. He was also adamant he had “full trust” in the seven players who had come into the team.
There’s no way the excessively positive manager can make that claim in future without scoffs from the masses after Chelsea’s first-half performance at Stamford Bridge. Full trust in Beniot Badiashile? In Jorrel Hato? In Alejandro Garnacho?! We think not.
Hato looked weak and horribly unsure of himself, Garnacho was somehow worse and neither of them made it out for the second half. We might have given Rosenior credit for those changes had they not been switches that quite literally anyone watching would have made themselves after Jarrod Bowen and Aaron Wan-Bissaka made hay, baled it and rolled it back and forth over the Chelsea duo down the Blues’ left flank.
Garnacho was bullied off the ball by Wan-Bissaka before Hato gave Bowen far too much space to swing his cross into Robert Sanchez’s far post to give West Ham the lead, at which point any confidence the Chelsea pair did have disintegrated to the point where the visitors looked like scoring every time they raided down their side.
The second goal arrived when Hato gave Bowen an absurd amount of space to play what was made a very easy pass for Wan-Bissaka on the underlap thanks to Garnacho not bothering to track his run. Crysencio Summerville’s finish on the run from the edge of the box was stunning.
Having highlighted the “threat” Bowen poses before the game, Rosenior’s decision to field his backup left-back over arguably the best defensive left-back in the league in Marc Cucurella is more than worthy of scrutiny, as is the call to swap out his entire front three for the second string. Garnacho, Delap and Jamie Gittens offered nothing.
As Gary Neville said on commentary, West Ham were “beating Chelsea up in every single way”, and that trend continued even after both Hato and Garnacho were hooked, along with Badiashile, with West Ham creating two further excellent chances to increase their lead at the start of the second half, before Chelsea scored to turn the tide dramatically in their favour.
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The second half served as a valuable lesson for Rosenior in the benefit of playing your best players.
Substitute Wesley Fofana accelerated into a crossing position and dug out a brilliant cross for substitute João Pedro to head smartly back across Alphonse Areola. It was then substitute Pedro Neto’s cross which found Malo Gusto (alright, they can’t all be substitutes) at the back post to keep the ball alive for substitute Cucurella to stoop and head in.
The change in momentum was extraordinary. Stamford Bridge was up after the fans had booed the players off at half-time.
It was the first time two substitutes have scored in the same game for Chelsea in three-and-a-half years, and with the clash drifting towards a draw that would have been just their seventh in 61 Premier League games when two goals down at half-time, Pedro then made it two assists from substitutes in stoppage time to ensure this was the first time Chelsea have ever won a Premier League game when 2-0 down at the break.
Enzo Fernandez bobbled in the finish before ripping off his shirt in celebration in front of the potty fans after Cole Palmer had played a sublime disguised pass for Moises Caicedo to open up the chance in the build-up.
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It’s absolutely the way fans want to see their team win a game of football and serves the narrative that Rosenior is boosting the character of this team. It takes some bottle to come back like that having turned a game around in similar fashion against Napoli in the Champions League, and the impact of comeback wins on a young squad shouldn’t be underestimated.
But we also mustn’t underestimate the impact this game will have had on Garnacho, Hato and the other players hooked after what was the worst half of football under their new manager before their replacements produced the very best.
Chelsea are a gloriously fun and vibe-heavy mess under Rosenior, and long may that continue for the neutrals. But consecutive joyous finishes to games have resulted because of the Chelsea manager’s mistakes in selecting his starting XI.
And while we are fully in favour of him continuing to get it very wrong and then very right, if his Chelsea are to find consistency on the way to glory he’s got to get the balance right when rotating, because although this is wonderful, it’s also no way to win trophies.
