Such is the gap between the two sides that only a win would do for Chelsea and new head coach Rosenior.<\/p>\n
This was a David\u2011versus\u2011Goliath encounter – Pafos are undertaking their first Champions League campaign and had not faced an English team in this season’s competition.<\/p>\n
The Cypriot champions are valued at just \u00a326.2m, compared with Chelsea’s squad worth more than \u00a31bn, according to football data website Transfermarkt.<\/p>\n
However, a classic low\u2011block approach from the side with the competition’s oldest average age proved effective. They shut out Chelsea – by contrast the youngest – and rode their luck when Luckassen was judged to have been pushed by Fernandez in the build\u2011up to the disallowed early header.<\/p>\n
But Chelsea were also too ponderous in possession, creating only a handful of further clear\u2011cut chances until Caicedo eventually won the match.<\/p>\n
Victory in such circumstances will do little to build a positive narrative, but Rosenior avoided the banana skin feared before kick-off – praising Pafos’ ongoing push to reach the play\u2011off round, which the Blues are desperate to avoid.<\/p>\n
Missing those two matches in February would give Chelsea two midweeks off and provide Rosenior – appointed a fortnight ago – with more time to train the squad and impose his identity on the group.<\/p>\n
It will be an exciting finale at Napoli’s Diego Armando Maradona Stadium next week, with Antonio Conte’s Italian champions also needing a win to stay in the competition.<\/p>\n
When asked about next week, Rosenior replied: “I am not daunted by the prospect. Antonio [Conte] is an incredible coach. They need to win which changes the dynamic a bit but we focus on Crystal Palace now.”<\/p>\n
Rosenior’s former side Strasbourg were exciting to watch and played with intensity and flair, but that style has not been evident since his appointment.<\/p>\n
For now, it is a case of building momentum and taking things one step at a time to reach the level the Englishman wants from his Chelsea team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Such is the gap between the two sides that only a win would do for Chelsea and new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-421827","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\/421827","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=421827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}