It’s been a troubling spring in west London. Chelsea are out of the Champions League and their hopes of returning next season are slipping away, fans are planning a protest and the players are disgruntled, BlueCo have reported more losses and questions are mounting over Liam Rosenior’s future.
But there’s still a huge amount to play for. An FA Cup semi-final against Leeds next week for a start, and while three straight Premier League defeats without scoring have damaged their top-five chances, the gap to Liverpool is only four points – with a titanic clash to come at Anfield on May 9.
And that’s before we get to a pivotal summer ahead, with reinforcements needed and a decision to be made over whether the Blues stick with their recruitment policy of signing young players with high potential.
There’s a huge amount to get into, and here our Chelsea expert KIERAN GILL answers your burning questions…
Does Liam Rosenior stay at Chelsea this summer?
My prediction is: Rosenior stays in charge of Chelsea this summer because only something approaching an absolute meltdown would force the club into another change of head coach.
Now, what does an absolute meltdown look like? Missing out on the Champions League apparently does not constitute that alone. But what about missing out on the Europa League? What about missing out on the Conference League? That’s for Chelsea to decide once this season is over.
Of course, they will hope none of the above happens. While their noses have been bloodied over the last month, they haven’t been knocked out of the fight for Champions League qualification altogether. Still six Premier League games to go. Still a trip to Liverpool to come. Still time if they get their act together.
I predict Liam Rosenior will stay, as only something approaching an absolute meltdown would force the club into another change of head coach
When Rosenior signed his six-and-a-half-year deal to join from Strasbourg in January, he was not told he would face an immediate review in his first summer, and he’s continuing to be heavily involved in recruitment meetings with the higher-ups, which suggests they’re thinking longer term.
There should be pressure on Rosenior, mind. I mean, Tottenham have had three managers since Chelsea last kept a clean sheet in the Premier League. Those two London rivals will be facing each other in a friendly in Sydney, Australia this summer (so long as Spurs don’t withdraw from that tour in the event of relegation). Right now, I think it’ll be Rosenior taking charge then, and preparing the players for the 2026-27 campaign. That’s what my crystal ball is saying today. What’s yours telling you?
Which centre back should we sign?
There are two names that should be among Chelsea’s list of centre back targets.
The first one: Maxence Lacroix. His move to Crystal Palace, worth up to £18million in 2024, saw him reunited with his former Wolfsburg boss, Oliver Glasner. Now, Glasner is leaving this summer, and with ambitions of representing France, Lacroix would be interested in that step up.
Chelsea want to sign a centre back who can partner Levi Colwill and the 26-year-old ticks most of the boxes they are looking for. Premier League experience? Tick – 63 appearances for Palace after 111 for Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga. Central centre back? Tick – he plays in the middle of a back three for Glasner’s Palace, though has previously played in a four.
Crystal Palace’s French centre back Maxence Lacroix should definitely be on their shortlist this summer
Right-footer? Tick – with Colwill being a leftie. Tall? Tick – he’s 6ft 3in. Physical? Tick – he’s towards the top of the Premier League defender rankings for duels won. Speedy? Tick – his recovery pace has been known to get Palace out of bother.
Passing perhaps isn’t considered Lacroix’s best quality, but the statistics say he has played more passes than any other Palace player this season (1,352 in total) and has the highest accuracy out of them all, too (87.94 per cent).
The second one: Jan Paul van Hecke. I once interviewed him in 2024 and walked out of it with the urge to phone my dad, just because I could, after hearing Van Hecke discuss how he had lost his father, Guus, whom he described as his ‘best friend’.
The Brighton centre back told me he tells himself before every game that Guus is watching him from above and so needs to perform like he knows he can to make him proud. He seems a lovely person, first and foremost.
As for his attributes, Van Hecke, a 25-year-old right footer, is tall (6ft 2in), physical (he even had a training ground bust-up with Joao Pedro once upon a time and no, it is not likely that would prevent a move to Chelsea), can pass from the back (he’s in the top five defenders in the Premier League for passes played this season), and so on.
Of course, he is also with Brighton, whom Chelsea seem to have on speed dial. I don’t think the optics of going for another Seagull would stop the Blues. If anything, those at Stamford Bridge could point to the success they’ve had when signing players from there, such as Moises Caicedo, Marc Cucurella, Joao Pedro, maybe even Robert Sanchez. Chelsea’s co-sporting director Paul Winstanley was at Brighton when they signed Van Hecke in 2020.
He is only contracted to the end of the 2026-27 season and if Chelsea need a character reference, they can call Strasbourg sporting director David Weir, who will tell them how consistently he handled juggling Premier League and European football while he was at Brighton. That was one of the reasons Weir handed him a new deal with the Seagulls in 2023.
Chelsea need a centre back, and I haven’t heard they have gone back in for Marcos Senesi at Bournemouth or Jacobo Ramon at Como – two names I previously reported were of interest in January when they decided to focus on Jeremy Jacquet of Rennes and, soon, Liverpool.
Jan Paul van Hecke (right) of Brighton is another who should be on Chelsea’s radar
Why does Rosenior suddenly have a say in transfers and Enzo Maresca didn’t?
Maresca told us he did, to be fair. He said a few times in our press conferences that signings came with his approval. Take Joao Felix, for example.
‘If Joao was here it’s because I wanted to sign Joao,’ Maresca insisted. But I have been told Rosenior has had more involvement in recruitment meetings than his predecessor.
Why? My guess is his existing relationship with those above him at Chelsea, from their time working together at Strasbourg, has helped in that regard.
Will Chelsea change their recruitment model totally? Or will they tweak it a little bit? Or will they ignore the fans’ plea?
We’re told Chelsea are tweaking it. One of my questions to Rosenior last week was: ‘You’re doing a lot of hinting here. Can you clarify, are you tweaking the strategy this summer rather than it being purely youth-led?’
His answer was: ‘When you have a process, you have to adjust your process to get to where you want to be. For me, we’ve had a lot of conversations, exciting conversations, about how we can move things forward this summer. You’ll see. You’ll see in the actions that we take rather than the words that I speak now.’
That doesn’t mean the old approach will be totally abandoned. Chelsea will still be active in scouring the market for talented prospects, along with their rivals.
But they seem much more open now to finally bringing in what some fans might call ‘grown-ups’, also known as experience. Which would be the right, arguably overdue, step in my opinion.
Chelsea will still be active in scouring the market for talented prospects, which has brought them the likes of Andrey Santos, Estevao Willian and Liam Delap
When will Levi Colwill come back?
He’s in team training again, and the hope is he can make a matchday squad before the end of the season.
I’d seen rumours on social media that he might feature for Chelsea’s Under 21s in their Premier League 2 game versus Fulham last week. I checked it out in the build-up, in case it was worth a piece on his comeback, but was told those claims were incorrect.
Chelsea could even bring him back into a matchday squad at some stage without actually intending to use him, just to get him back into the groove with the group.
They’ve done that before. With Estevao Willian in their Champions League last-16 second leg against Paris Saint-Germain, for example. The 18-year-old Brazilian was included in that squad after being sidelined but they had no plans on playing him.
Levi Colwill is in team training again, and the hope is he can make a matchday squad before the end of the season
Are the financial losses sustainable? What’s the projection for next year? Why aren’t there journalists covering this?
I think there are financial journalists working within football who cover this topic comprehensively. I personally find Kieran Maguire to be among the fair ones.
When asked, Chelsea sources insist on an operating basis, they are now fully structured to comply with all regulatory requirements and that they expect to stay compliant. They add cost structure is now more variable to align with revenues, and from a cash flow perspective, the club is disciplined. That said, when you see some of the whopping numbers written down in black and white, it’s hard not to think: oof.
For a while now, we’ve said Chelsea are anticipating another crazy summer. I wrote a column on that in February when I mentioned their admiration for Adam Wharton at Crystal Palace and Elliot Anderson at Nottingham Forest.
But their anticipated activity is not only because they want signings. They will need to sell, too. The sheer volume of transfers in the last windows is what largely led to Chelsea topping the agent fees table yet again this year.
It isn’t that they overpay intermediaries. On a per-transaction basis, I’m assured they stick to the market rates, following the Premier League average. It’s that they use these brokers so often. I’m expecting more of the same this summer.
Chelsea are ancitipating another crazy summer, and admire England’s two young central midfield stars Elliot Anderson (left) and Adam Wharton
What’s the latest on Mykhailo Mudryk?
The latest on Mudryk is… yesterday I received a message on WhatsApp with a video showing him playing padel in Canary Wharf. Got to stay fit while waiting for word on your doping case, and he’s continued to train at non-League side Uxbridge, too.
He’s not played since he started and scored in a Conference League victory at Heidenheim in November 2024, which is remarkable, and he has denied any and all wrongdoing ever since being informed of his failed test. Sadly with these serious situations, all we can do is wait for an official announcement.
Who’s in contract talks?
Rosenior half-revealing that we may see extensions announced in the coming weeks was intriguing. He would have only teased that if the player being tied down is going to be a big boost for the club, surely.
I know Caicedo has been interested in new terms since before Christmas – much like Enzo Fernandez. Caicedo has also changed agents within the last six months – again like Fernandez.
I asked around on Caicedo’s situation this week, but club sources are keeping schtum on it, and the player’s lawyer is blanking us, so, er, that’s where I’m at with that one. He’s a great player, Caicedo, but if we’re being honest, his performances have been below-par of late, and he’s tied down until 2032, including his one-year option, anyhow.
Another one of my candidates would be Cucurella, whose contract will only have two years remaining on it as of this summer, which is usually a time when you either extend or sell. I’d keep him.
As for Fernandez, I reckon he starts versus Manchester United this Saturday. Huge match, that. The fans are bound to be riled up, too, what with the planned protest happening outside of Stamford Bridge beforehand.
Moises Caicedo has been keen on a new contract since Christmas – but he has plenty of time left on his current deal and his performances have dipped in recent months
Why does Rosenior talk so much?
Rosenior is obliged to do a pre and post-match press conference, as well as a sit-down with Sky Sports or TNT Sports if the game has been selected for television (Chelsea’s often are).
Managers also have to conduct three content sessions with international broadcasters per season, and that half-time chat he did in the weekend’s 3-0 home loss to Manchester City was contractual also.
Naturally, we follow Chelsea. We take more notice of what Rosenior says, his quotes inevitably feature on our feeds, and because what he sometimes says is different or at odds with the general feeling among fans, his words generate debate.
It’s totally fine to think Rosenior is talking rubbish if you disagree with him. I can’t say I’ve agreed with all of his claims myself. But I don’t think he actually speaks more or less than other managers.
Any news on season-ticket pricing?
I asked, but haven’t got an answer right now, as I have been told consultations are ongoing.
