Chelsea are spiralling, on and off the pitch. The situation is untenable

Less than a week has passed since Chelsea co-owner Behdad Eghbali suggested, during a rare public appearance at the CAA World Congress of Sports conference, that the story of the Liam Rosenior era might yet take a different course.

“In my perspective, when you get punched in the face, you’ve got to fight back. You’ve got to stand up and fight,” he said of his team’s ongoing struggles under head coach Rosenior. “And it’s going to hopefully show a lot about the character of this squad.”

The days since those comments have underlined the brutal, tragicomic truth: Chelsea are spiralling and deeply mired in the realm of the unserious, on and off the pitch.

First there was the bizarre, awkward spectacle of them publishing a video of an informal ceremony, filmed at the start of a team meeting at the training ground, to mark Moises Caicedo demonstrating his unwavering long-term commitment to the BlueCo project by extending his contract from *checks notes* 2032 (factoring in a one-year club option) all the way to… 2033.

Strangely, that heart-warming and momentous news failed to quell the large fan protest against the owners’ running of the west London club that took place before Saturday’s visit of Manchester United. Michael Carrick’s away team duly capitalised on Wesley Fofana momentarily putting Chelsea down to 10 men by leaving the field for treatment on a rib injury to score the only goal they needed to as good as end Rosenior’s hopes of delivering Champions League qualification following his January appointment as Enzo Maresca’s replacement.

Chelsea arrived at the Amex Stadium in Brighton on Tuesday for their next game needing a result as much to find a reason not to check out on the season as to preserve any receding Champions League qualification aspirations.

None of the pre-match omens were promising: Chelsea’s team news confirmed an “exclusive” posted by a since-deleted X account purporting to be that of full-back Marc Cucurella’s barber, which had informed several Fantasy Premier League users earlier on Tuesday that Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer would not be playing — days after this FPL gameweek’s transfer deadline had passed.

Chelsea’s substitutes against Brighton, generally youthful in the BlueCo era, combined for 289 career Premier League appearances; Alejandro Garnacho and Tosin Adarabioyo accounted for 230 of those.

Then there was the restoration of the captain’s armband to Enzo Fernandez, less than a month after Chelsea and Rosenior had suspended him for two matches after the Argentina midfielder spent much of the March international break encouraging speculation about a summer move to Real Madrid in a series of media appearances.

Most jarring of all was Rosenior’s abrupt change of tactical system: a return to five at the back out of possession, a ploy not seen since Chelsea set up to spoil against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg at the Emirates Stadium on February 3.

It made little sense on paper and was rendered utterly obsolete inside three minutes of play by a routine Brighton & Hove Albion corner that Jorrel Hato failed to clear at the near post, and a Ferdi Kadioglu shot that Fofana tried to block but only succeeded in diverting past goalkeeper Robert Sanchez.

Brighton proceeded to batter Chelsea for the rest of the first half as the travelling supporters distracted themselves from the spectacle and the chill of an April evening on England’s south coast by running through the entire BlueCo protest repertoire, culminating in a demand for Eghbali — watching stone-faced in the stands alongside co-director of recruitment and talent Joe Shields — to “f**k off, you’re not wanted here”.

For the first time, Rosenior got similar treatment, at first tentatively and then resoundingly, to the point where the home supporters took a break from booing all of the many Brighton alumni among the visiting party to sing the name of the man who played for their club from 2015 to 2018 and chant “he’s one of our own”. By then, Jack Hinshelwood had doubled the lead, bouncing Caicedo to the floor as Jeremy Doku of Manchester City did a little more than a week ago to score from Georginio Rutter’s pass just before the hour.

The fact that BlueCo’s recruitment has managed to transform Chelsea into the mortal enemy of a mid-tier, relatively mild-mannered Premier League club would be less of a concern if Brighton did not keep dominating these head-to-head meetings.

Fabian Hurzeler’s team never looked in danger and there was a sense of inevitability about Danny Welbeck’s seventh career goal against Chelsea from the bench when it arrived in stoppage time, the result of another shockingly simple move.

The away end was mostly empty when Chelsea’s players nervously edged over towards it at the final whistle. Rosenior accompanied them, walking closer to the fans who remained and putting his hand on his chest as he allowed the opprobrium of those angrily gesticulating stragglers to wash over him.

Fernandez was the last to retreat to the changing room, seemingly keen to show leadership and accountability by engaging with the same supporters his recent comments had suggested he is open to leaving this summer.

Rosenior then tried gamely to stress the seriousness of the situation in his post-match media duties.

“The performance in terms of professionalism wasn’t there,” he told Sky Sports. “It was a really, really difficult night, the most difficult night — not even here at this magnificent football club — but in my career. Some of the things I witnessed today, I don’t want to ever see again.

“If you’re playing at this elite football club, or any football club, to be even accused of throwing the towel in is unacceptable. That’s all I’m going to say. I’m hurting, I’m feeling numb. That doesn’t represent me. That doesn’t represent the football club in any way. That has to change, starting with the FA Cup semi-final on Sunday.”

But even the authority of that message was undermined.

“I thought personally the boys were running their socks off,” defender Trevoh Chalobah told the same broadcaster. “Everyone in the changing room is tired. It’s nothing to do with effort. We gave it our all, we just got beat today.”

None of this engenders confidence going into that FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United at Wembley, or any of Chelsea’s four remaining Premier League games. This finishing whimper is beginning to echo the miserable final weeks of the 2022-23 season, when a bloated squad simply let go of the rope long before the end.

Chelsea finished that campaign in 12th position.

The trajectory here looks similar — Brighton leapfrog them into sixth place with these three points, and they could be in the bottom half of the table when they next play in the league on May 4 at home to Nottingham Forest — and the situation is every bit as untenable.

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