Liam Rosenior’s sacking was always likely to be bad news for Leeds and Enzo Fernandez epitomised the massive improvement in Chelsea to secure them a place in the FA Cup final.
If Rosenior had still been in charge there was a fair chance after making jokes about his glasses, baulking at his admission of ‘vulnerability’ in a team meeting and generally cringing at his LinkedIn language that the Chelsea players would rather have lost the FA Cup semi-final than risk victory being seen of his suitability for the job in the eyes of disastrous owners BlueCo.
The difference in Chelsea from the pathetic 3-0 defeat to Brighton which made Rosenior’s position ‘untenable’ was extraordinary, if also wholly predictable; no change more extraordinary or predictable than the spike in Enzo Fernandez’s performance.
Fernandez set the sack wheels in motion through what amounted to threats of his departure if Rosenior remained as head coach. His teammates took umbrage with him being banned for “crossing the line” and essentially decided that they would rather have the World Cup winner in the team than Rosenior coaching it. It was plain to see why at Wembley.
A footballer whose ability comfortably outstripped any opposition player and possibly anyone on his own team simply decided to run this game of football.
Uncomfortable questions of his character will be raised such is the way he flipped a switch between not giving a sh*t to chest-out domination, but performing to the best of his ability when motivated to do so is one of the more human aspects of his evidently flawed constitution.
Chelsea in general were far more aggressive out of possession, frequently winning the ball back high up the pitch, and more often than not it was Fernandez making those crucial interventions, or at least triggering them by forcing teammates ahead of him into action through the press. He won nine of his 12 ground duels.
Joao Pedro smashed the base of the post after a pass from Fernandez with Leeds players crowding him in the box and really should have scored when he got the ball caught under his feet following a great Chelsea move made glorious by a Fernandez flick. But it was Fernandez’s goal, like so many he’s scored this season, which really sets him apart as one of the very best midfielders in the world and has Real Madrid and Manchester City interested in signing him.
Pascal Struijk was inexplicably outmuscled by Pedro Neto in the air before forgetting the key link between his foot and the ball in the game of football to present the Chelsea winger with the crossing opportunity. The delivery was good but it was Fernandez’s movement towards the front post before stalling to find space which makes the goal. There are few better at finding that yard or two in the box and it’s now resulted in 13 goals this season.
He and Chelsea had it nearly all their own way in the first half, before Daniel Farke switched to four at the back.
Robert Sanchez needed a strong wrist to deny Anton Stach’s stinging shot from the edge of the box and Dominic Calvert-Lewin probably should have done better after rising brilliantly to head an excellent cross from the generally brilliant Noah Okafor straight at the Chelsea goalkeeper.
The pressure was building on Chelsea before Andrey Santos was introduced as a soothing presence at the heart of the Blues midfield and the game settled into an affair of relative comfort for a team whose inability to effectively manage a game of football had been questioned long before the Rosenior fever dream.
Pedro and Neto worked brilliantly to wind down the clock, winning challenges and free-kicks while Chelsea’s famously fragile defence and goalkeeper went largely untested for the last half hour as a rejuvenated Moises Caicedo sensed danger and swept up when required.
It was a professional display of great desire and no little quality to rightly or wrongly throw shade on Rosenior and his doomed-to-fail reign at Stamford Bridge, and Calum McFarlane reaped the reward.
“It’s probably come too early for him,” Joe Cole said with with no hint of irony as McFarlane prepared to take charge of his third game as a senior football manager in a Wembley semi-final.
From Lambeth Town to Chelsea caretaker via Tromso and six years as a coach at the Kinetic Foundation, a south London‑based football and education charity, McFarlane was hailed by Cole for a “meteoric rise” which will now see him leading the Blues out against Manchester City in the final.
It’s an incredible story, and precisely the sort of rags to riches tale that BlueCo will be sold on as the self-appointed smartest people in the room continue their desperate bid to be hailed as geniuses ahead of deciding who should be their next permanent manager.
“There is a misconception that he and the others lack experience. He is a fantastic man‑manager who has coached across a number of academies, and if he had stayed at Southampton, he might have had the opportunity that Tonda Eckert received when he was promoted from the Under‑21s to first‑team manager.
“We celebrate players who come from non‑league, like Jamie Vardy, so why not coaches? In reality, they have spent years working in academies, grassroots football and challenging environments. They have done the hard yards.”
The thoughts of James Fotheringham, founder of the Kinetic Foundation, not comments made by Behdad Egbhali or Todd Boehly in response to softball question at a billionaires conference no-one’s heard of upon appointing McFarlane in the summer. You could absolutely see it though.
Reports claim the club chiefs were pleased with his first spell as interim head coach, including the way he showed professionalism and composure while handling media duties. His intelligence was evident in his post-match interview.
READ MORE: Ranking 24 BlueCo mistakes at Chelsea as Rosenior appointment joins three sackings
He deserves great credit for what Sanchez said after the game was a pre-planned move for the goal, for that key second-half substitution and for setting his team up in a way to make victory possible. But Chelsea won this game because the players – epitomised by Fernandez – wanted to prove they weren’t the problem in this harrowing run.
However, thanks to BlueCo endeavouring to hand the reins of one of the biggest clubs in Europe to progressively less experienced coaches en route to plucking yer da from Under-13s duty on a Sunday morning, we can all expect McFarlane to be handed a six-year deal this summer.
