The Blues’ vice-captain was speaking after Chelsea’s 3-0 thrashing by PSG at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night, which sealed an 8-2 humiliation at the hands of the European champions. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Bradley Barcola scored early goals to kill any hope of a dramatic comeback, before substitute Senny Mayulu added a third in the second half.
Fernandez joined Chelsea for £107m as one of BlueCo’s first major transfers. He has been one of the team’s best performers in an underwhelming season so far, with 12 goals and six assists in 45 appearances, but the midfielder refused to commit his future to the club.
Asked where he would be playing next season, Fernandez told ESPN Argentina: “I don’t know. There are eight games left [of the Premier League season] and the FA Cup. There’s the World Cup and then we’ll see.”
Fernandez’s departure would be a major blow to manager Liam Rosenior. The midfielder has developed a knack of arriving in the box to score important goals, and his experience as a World Cup winner is invaluable as part of what is the Premier League’s youngest squad.
Individual errors cost Chelsea in both legs (Adam Davy/PA)
Rosenior was unaware of Fernandez’s comments when they were put to him in his post-match press conference.
“I haven’t seen that. It’s hard for me to speak on speculation after a game. I need to focus right now on the most important things, which is making sure we have the right result against Everton [this weekend].”
The result marked a heaviest-ever two-legged defeat for the Blues in Europe and just like in the first leg at the Parc des Princes, it was individual mistakes which were their undoing.
Mamadou Sarr, brought in for his debut in the competition with Reece James and Malo Gusto ruled out, made a horrible error to gift Kvaratskhelia a goal after six minutes and things only got worse from there.
Barcola scored a magnificent second, only after Trevoh Chalobah had failed to pick up the France international, before 19-year-old midfielder Mayulu came off the bench to cap the home side’s humiliation.
It continued a theme from the first leg when goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen’s mistake was the catalyst for the team to ship three late goals, leaving them facing a task that proved too much.
“Six minutes in and another mistake,” said Rosenior. “It takes the wind from our sails. The second goal is hit from 25 yards into the top corner.
Fans were frustrated after Cole Palmer was substituted off (Adam Davy/PA)
“When you go two goals down so early and five down on aggregate, it’s really difficult. Obviously, we wanted to put up more of a fight than we did. Credit to PSG. Over the two legs they deserve to go through.”
It was a third defeat in seven days following the thumping in the first leg and Saturday’s 1-0 defeat here to Newcastle, with Rosenior’s promising start in west London at risk of turning sour.
Chelsea are sixth in the Premier League and face a fight to return to the Champions League next season.
Asked how he would make sure the campaign is kept on track, Rosenior said: “That’s my job. How I go about that is how we always go about it. We need to be resilient. We need to make sure go to Everton (on Saturday) with organisation, freshness and intensity.
“We want to be in this competition next season. If we perform as we can, we can get there without the individual mistakes that we’re making.”
Paris St Germain eased into the quarter-finals after an 8-2 aggregate win (Adam Davy/PA)
Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro were taken off in the second half with the tie clearly long out of Chelsea’s reach, but it did not stop a furious reaction from home fans at what appeared to be a the waving of a white flag.
“If I don’t manage their minutes their likelihood of getting injured is increased very highly,” said Rosenior.
“I have to make really difficult decisions that at the time probably don’t look great to be honest. You never want to take off your best players when you’re five goals down. But I want to make the best decisions in the long term as well.”
PSG boss Luis Enrique reflected that the tie was essentially won after the first leg.
“Of course, I’m proud because I didn’t expect that kind of result,” he said.
“If we think about the first match, the first 80 minutes we draw the match, then the last 10 minutes we overcame them.”