Chelsea arrive at the international break reeling from four straight defeats and with a congested April schedule to prepare for. Liam Rosenior has two weeks to arrest a slide that has exposed issues in goal, defence, midfield and attack.<\/p>\n
Goalkeeping is the first dilemma. Robert S\u00e1nchez was settling under Enzo Maresca but has been guilty of a series of unforced errors since Rosenior took charge. S\u00e1nchez was left on the bench for the 4\u20131 win over Aston Villa and then watched as Filip J\u00f6rgensen endured a nightmare showing in the first leg defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. J\u00f6rgensen has since undergone minor surgery to hand his spot in the team back to S\u00e1nchez, who understandably looks devoid of confidence after Rosenior\u2019s snub in the biggest game of the season.<\/p>\n
Tactical adjustment is the second necessity. Maresca worked to minimize S\u00e1nchez\u2019s weaknesses and maximise his strengths; those lessons have not clearly been retained. Chelsea have produced a handful of truly rotten performances and a lack of attacking invention sits alongside far worse defensive problems.<\/p>\n
Defensive cohesion has broken down. Players have been caught out of position and injured. Captain Reece James is sidelined with a hamstring injury and Trevoh Chalobah will need six weeks to recover from an ankle problem that stemmed from a challenge by Achraf Hakimi. Rosenior still has five central defenders available, but none have offered consistent assurance. Wesley Fofana has endured a poor run, Mamadou Sarr struggled in an unfamiliar role against PSG, Tosin Adarabioyo and Beno\u00eet Badiashile appear to be fighting for their futures, and young Josh Acheampong has shown examples of inexperience under pressure.<\/p>\n
Finally, the attack and midfield require clarity. Est\u00eav\u00e3o returned from a hamstring issue to play the final 20 minutes of the defeat to Everton and could provide a natural boost, but Rosenior must decide how to fit him into a crowded forward line where Cole Palmer and Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez have been occupying overlapping positions. Fern\u00e1ndez has looked unlike the box-crashing player seen under Maresca and Rosenior must choose whether to keep him advanced or sit him deeper alongside Moises Caicedo, who himself has appeared fatigued as the manager has rotated midfield partners. Stability down the spine is essential.<\/p>\n
Fixture list<\/p>\n
Port Vale (H) April 4
\nMan City (H) April 12
\nMan Utd (H) April 18
\nBrighton (A) April 26<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea head into the international break with four urgent problems Rosenior must solve quickly. ok.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9486,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1383,172],"tags":[944,1304,1089],"class_list":["post-9487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","category-epl","tag-andrey-santos","tag-benching","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9487","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=9487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}