Chelsea dismissed Liam Rosenior after 106 days in charge as the club\u2019s Premier League hopes faded. The Blues lost their last five league matches without finding the net for the first time since 1912, a sequence that left them seventh and outside the Champions League positions.<\/p>\n
The standings cited in the aftermath placed Manchester United on 58 points, Aston Villa on 55, Liverpool on 55 and Chelsea on 48. The immediate schedule compounds Chelsea\u2019s challenge. First up after Rosenior\u2019s exit are the FA Cup semifinals against Leeds United on Sunday. League action resumes on Monday, May 4, at Nottingham Forest, a fixture the draft flagged as potentially tricky given Forest\u2019s relegation fight.<\/p>\n
Five days later Chelsea travel to Anfield, described as the big challenge. The reverse fixture in October had been favourable to Chelsea, but the draft underlined Liverpool\u2019s push for a Champions League berth and the threat that poses. Chelsea then host Tottenham Hotspur, a team noted as struggling in 2026, before closing the 2025\/26 campaign away at Sunderland.<\/p>\n
The wider context helps explain the magnitude of the task. Manchester United moved 10 points clear of Chelsea after a 1\u20130 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday and face Brentford and Liverpool as they seek to cement their top-four status. United\u2019s remaining fixtures in the draft include Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford and a finale against Brighton & Hove Albion.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa are balancing Premier League commitments with Europa League semifinals and had Fulham on the weekend program. The draft also noted Villa\u2019s remaining tests include Liverpool and Manchester City, and that Burnley appear to be heading towards relegation.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s path contains Crystal Palace before a trip to Old Trafford, with the draft observing that Old Trafford has yielded only one win for Liverpool since 2022. Chelsea\u2019s run-in, the sequence of results that triggered Rosenior\u2019s sacking, and the fixtures ahead leave the club needing major reversals elsewhere if a top-five finish is to be salvaged.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea sacked Rosenior after 106 days. FA Cup semi then a difficult league run follows and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12658,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1505,1162,1530],"class_list":["post-12659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-caretaker-manager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}