PLAYING THE BLUES<\/p>\n
Discipline has long been one of the cornerstones of a successful dressing room in England. If John Eustace\u2019s Birmingham City players did not wish the training ground reception staff \u201cgood morning\u201d they were issued with a \u00a3250 penalty. Steven Gerrard implemented a variety of fines when manager of Aston Villa for players leaving flip-flops in the shower (\u00a350), forgetting to bring a cake for a birthday (\u00a350, Yaya Tour\u00e9: look away now), leaving plates and cups on the dining table (\u00a3100 an item). When Frank Lampard replaced Maurizio Sarri in 2019-20, Lampard immediately introduced a series of internal disciplinary fines for first-team players. Late for training? That\u2019s \u00a320,000, guv. Failure to report knack or illness before a day off? That\u2019s 10 large. Phone rings during a team meeting? One thousand English pounds, thank you very much.<\/p>\n
Chelsea have again swapped an Italian for an Englishman and, while we\u2019re not privy to the new disciplinary rules under Liam Rosenior, it turns out that \u201cflirting with hacks over a move to Real Madrid\u201d is not an unpunishable offence. Rosenior has had something of a PR problem since his appointment but for all his over-earnest, High Performance rhetoric in \u201cprotecting the culture\u201d with his squad, Rosenior has managed the Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez situation rather well. To recap: while on international duty with Argentina, Chelsea\u2019s vice-captain teased that he \u201cdidn\u2019t know\u201d if he would be at the club next season (contract expiry 2032) and subtly elaborated: \u201cI really like Madrid \u2013 it\u2019s similar to Buenos Aires.\u201d In what was potentially a very sticky situation, Rosenior\u2019s strong reaction \u2013 publicly criticising (but not alienating) Fern\u00e1ndez and dropping him for two matches<\/a> \u2013 has since earned mostly praise from fans and the media, reasserted clear squad boundaries, and paved the way for both a productive one-to-one chat with Fern\u00e1ndez<\/a> (who was supportive of the team\u2019s 7-0 FA Cup win<\/a> last weekend) and now a full apology from the World Cup winner.<\/p>\n Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s Mr 15%, former PSG maestro Javier Pastore, has previously been something of a nuisance, claiming Chelsea\u2019s punishment was \u201ccompletely unfair\u201d and that his client \u201cdeserves much more than he\u2019s currently earning\u201d, but even he seems to have been brought back into line. \u201cThe media mixed things up and started saying he was going to leave Chelsea \u2013 there\u2019s absolutely nothing to it,\u201d he parped, innocently. \u201cWe made peace yesterday and the day before that, between Chelsea and the player. There were never really any problems. We cleared the air. We explained to the player that, even though he hadn\u2019t done anything wrong, he shouldn\u2019t have said that. He\u2019s only 25. He\u2019s still young; he still has things to learn. We explained to the club that he said it without malice, that he made a mistake. He naturally apologised to the club, his teammates, the coach, the sporting director, and everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n Happy families at Chelsea, then, except that the Blues remain sixth and will be missing Fern\u00e1ndez for this weekend\u2019s crunch game with in-form Manchester City. \u201cHe won\u2019t play on Sunday, but hopefully after that he\u2019ll be a massive part of the group moving forward,\u201d roared Rosenior on Friday. \u201cThere are still a few hurdles that need to be overcome that I won\u2019t go into, but at the same time I want every player really focused now on a huge run.\u201d The first obstacle to a huge run is Pep Guardiola\u2019s side \u2013 fresh from beating Arsenal<\/a> at Wembley and thrashing Liverpool<\/a> last weekend \u2013 with City hoping to dish out the same treatment that PSG administered to Chelsea<\/a> just a few weeks ago, a result that set the whole situation in motion<\/a>. Who\u2019s to say what kind of disharmony and disquiet could be created in Rosenior\u2019s side by another home shellacking?<\/p>\n LIVE ON BIG WEBSITE<\/p>\n Join John Brewin from 8pm BST for hot minute-by-minute updates from West Ham 0-0 Wolves in the Premier League.<\/p>\n QUOTE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for your lovely email. Now go [eff] yourself\u201d \u2013 Northern Premier League chairman Mark Harris has been stood down after allegedly sending this abusive reply to an FC United of Manchester fan over its decision to change the venue for an important end-of-season game. \u201cFollowing a meeting of the board, the Northern Premier League can confirm that [he] has been relieved of his duties with immediate effect, pending a full disciplinary investigation,\u201d read a statement on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n double quotation markSheffield FC invented football (yesterday\u2019s Quote of the Day<\/a>)? A certain person on the other side of the Atlantic would no doubt dispute that\u201d \u2013 Robert Pearce.<\/p>\n If you have any, please send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com<\/a>. Today\u2019s prizeless letter o\u2019 the day winner is \u2026 Robert Pearce. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, are here<\/a>.<\/p>\n RECOMMENDED DONATING<\/p>\n Barry Glendenning is running the London Landmarks Half-Marathon on Sunday to raise money for the Great Ormond Street hospital children\u2019s charity. He\u2019s already more than quadrupled his original target of \u00a313,100 but would be grateful for any more donations in the last day or two before the race because, well, it\u2019s a brilliant cause and here at Football Daily Towers we think he needs every bit of motivation he can get. If you can, donate here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Give generously, if you can. Illustration: Gary NeillRECOMMENDED SUBSCRIBING<\/p>\n Want a newsletter that explains how the World Cup became the cultural, social and political behemoth that it is? Then look no further than The World Behind the Cup, a new email from Jonathan Wilson coming soon. You can pre-subscribe<\/a> \u2026 but please stick with your faithful Football Daily too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLAYING THE BLUES Discipline has long been one of the cornerstones of a successful dressing room in England.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-598269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}