There may only have been 100-200 fans protesting outside the stadium before the game, but against the backdrop of that fringe movement, this was a win Chelsea needed.<\/p>\n
There are various concerns within the fanbase, and not everyone agreed with those gathered outside the Britannia Gate before kick-off. <\/p>\n
But the general mood reflected the growing frustration heard at both home and away games, where chants in support of former owner Roman Abramovich – and against current custodians Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital – have become an increased part of the background noise around the club.<\/p>\n
Just one win in nine matches before this was at the heart of those concerns – and chants in support of former manager Enzo Maresca, who left on New Year’s Day, highlighted the rising distrust in the club’s decision-making.<\/p>\n
Rosenior, who was appointed before Chelsea played Fulham earlier this month but did not take charge of the game, has not been targeted by fans, but a slow start could have risked him being drawn into the wider frustration.<\/p>\n
Yet while Chelsea’s performance was far from assured, their superior finishing ultimately separated these two west London rivals.<\/p>\n
Rosenior will be relieved. <\/p>\n
He has spoken about needing short\u2011term results to secure the time required to imprint his ideas on a team still playing in an eerily similar style to Maresca’s. In fairness, his substitutions proved influential, with Andrey Santos offering tidy, defensively solid play, and Delap winning a penalty.<\/p>\n
Rosenior revealed after the match that winger Estevao Willian was the latest player to miss out through illness, and that a virus continues to wreak havoc.<\/p>\n
“It’s running through the squad,” he said. “There were a few, I won’t say who, but there were a couple of players playing today who were complaining about their chests. They put in a magnificent effort.<\/p>\n
“Liam was ill. Yesterday late, Estevao had a temperature and a fever. We just have to be really adaptable and adjust the way that we work.<\/p>\n
“I felt that’s why we weren’t good with the ball. I won’t give you names, it’s not right for me to do that, but I’m so happy with the attitude of the group to get through this game.”<\/p>\n
Put simply, Chelsea needed a win – to quieten the noise, stay within reach of Champions League qualification, and kickstart another new era under another new manager.<\/p>\n
As Rosenior said: “We didn’t play the free-flowing football that I want us to in the end, but we got the job done and that’s a really, really pleasing result for the players to give them and myself more confidence moving forward.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There may only have been 100-200 fans protesting outside the stadium before the game, but against the backdrop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-413899","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}