Liam Rosenior back in France as Chelsea face PSG Champions League challenge
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Liam Rosenior will take his Chelsea side to Paris to face PSG in the Champions League last-16, first leg on March 11.
PHOTO: AFP
PARIS – The renewal of Chelsea’s rivalry with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on March 11 sees Liam Rosenior make a quick return to France, just two months after he left Strasbourg.
The Englishman was appointed by Chelsea in January on the back of a solid body of work over 18 months at Strasbourg, as well as the close links between the two clubs run by the BlueCo consortium.
He led the French team to European qualification last season and laid foundations that have been built on by his successor Gary O’Neil, who has taken them to the French Cup semi-finals.
Rosenior got a young side – in which almost the entire squad are aged 23 or under – playing a sophisticated brand of football, with possession-based high pressing and man-to-man marking.
Strasbourg were one of just two teams to beat PSG in Ligue 1 last season, with a 2-1 victory in May that admittedly came after Luis Enrique’s team had been confirmed as champions.
And Rosenior’s last visit to the Parc des Princes in October ended in Strasbourg claiming a 3-3 draw – they had been 3-1 up at one point.
“We were playing against the best team in the world, full stop. I think they are a credit to this league,” he described PSG.
This PSG-Chelsea fixture became a genuine rivalry for a time in the last decade, when the clubs met in the Champions League knockout phase in three straight seasons, from 2014 to 2016.
The first was a quarter-final won by Chelsea, but PSG triumphed in the last 16 in the two years that followed.
The most recent encounter was in the Club World Cup final last July, when Chelsea won 3-0 against a tired PSG in sapping conditions in New Jersey.
Now they meet in the last 16 once again, in the first leg at PSG’s home ground.
“These are the games you live for, games that you come into football for,” Rosenior added.
He has so far lost three games out of 15 in charge of Chelsea, all of them against Arsenal.
A 4-1 win at Aston Villa on March 4 left the Blues fifth in the Premier League, and March 7’s extra-time victory at Wrexham took them through to the FA Cup quarter-finals.
PSG looke more vulnerable recently, with their performance in a 3-1 home defeat by Monaco on March 6 heavily criticised.
The Champions Have Stopped Responding, was the headline in sports daily L’Equipe, which described Enrique’s team as being “on the verge of a crisis”.
That might sound like an exaggeration, but PSG have already been beaten four times in all competitions in 2026.
Their lead over Lens at the top of Ligue 1 is just one point, and in Europe they appear a level below the likes of Arsenal and Bayern Munich.
Fitness has been an issue all season, with Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembele making his latest comeback at the weekend after a layoff with a calf injury.
Key midfielders Fabian Ruiz and Joao Neves have also been absent.
“We are clearly in difficulty at the moment but we need to maintain hope that will change,” said Enrique. “Confidence is not just something you buy at the supermarket.”
Rosenior, for all his worth, will be hoping to exploit PSG’s weaknesses. AFP
