Jamie Carragher doubts the appointment of Liam Rosenior will push Chelsea any closer to the Premier League title.
Barring any last-minute issues, Rosenior will be appointed as the new Chelsea manager after Enzo Maresca left the role on New Year’s Day.
Rosenior – who is currently in charge of French side Strasbourg, who are also owned by BlueCo – will meet the Stamford Bridge hierarchy on Monday for face-to-face talks.
While nothing is confirmed, the expectation is Chelsea will appoint Rosenior before their next game – Wednesday’s west London derby against Fulham.
As a result Strasbourg president Marc Keller have already started interviewing replacements for Rosenior and have a final shortlist of three candidates.
In Chelsea’s first game since Maresca’s departure, Enzo Fernandez scored an injury-time equaliser in a 1-1 draw with Manchester City.
Calum McFarlane was in the Chelsea dugout at the Etihad Stadium but will return to his role with the U21 side once Rosenior is appointed.
Rosenior’s three managerial stints so far have come at Strasbourg, Hull City and Derby County. He was a successful EFL player before retiring in 2018, playing for the likes of Hull, Fulham, Reading and Brighton.
Carragher was a ‘big fan’ of Maresca but saw his departure ‘coming’ given his increasingly strained relationship with the Chelsea board.
The Liverpool legend has questioned the expected appointment of Rosenior, however, and says the job is coming ‘too early’ for the 41-year-old former pundit.
‘I was a big fan of Enzo Maresca as a manager,’ Carragher said on Sky Sports. ‘When he came up against some of the biggest managers in this league, he more than held his own.
‘But I could see this coming: you can’t start speaking out of turn at any club, but especially Chelsea who have so many sporting directors.
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‘As soon as the results started to deteriorate in the last few weeks, he didn’t turn up at a press conference, this was inevitable.
What Liam Rosenior said about Chelsea links
‘I’m going to talk about Nice because that’s my job,’ he said in quotes reported by local media outlet DNA.
‘There’s a lot of noise, a lot of speculation, but as a coach, if you get involved, you fail.
‘I don’t want to guarantee how long I’ll be here, but I enjoy myself here every day. I love this club, but I can’t guarantee anything. Nobody can.
‘I could say I’m going to stay here for years and then get fired.’
‘Now Maresca’s gone, the focus will be on the club and the ownership. I’ve been quite critical of the way they’ve gone about it over the last three-and-a-half years.
‘If you look at the timeline of managers: they inherited Thomas Tuchel, a Champions League-winning manager. It now looks like they’re going to inherit Liam Rosenior, who has managed Derby, Hull and Strasbourg.
‘It’s a great opportunity for him, but Chelsea Football Club and their supporters are not used to those appointments.
‘They are used to Jose Mourinho, Guus Hiddink, Antonio Conte – big-name managers coming to make a huge impact on their club. I don’t see Rosenior doing that.
‘His target will be to make sure they get into the Champions League next season and they’re more than capable of doing that. We expect it to be five Premier League teams [that qualify for the Champions League] as it was last season.
‘But I don’t think it’s an appointment that is going to put Chelsea on to win a Premier League title or a Champions League trophy, and that’s what Chelsea should be aspiring for and that’s what the supporters have been used to over the last 20 years.
‘That’s not a lack of respect of a criticism for Liam Rosenior, he’s still a young man and he’s on a journey to be a top coach one day.
‘For me, it’s just a job that’s probably going to come too early to have the success that Chelsea as a football club should expect.’
Ex-Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville has also questioned the impact Rosenior will have on an already inexperienced squad.
‘You genuinely can’t win anything with kids. That’s a fact. Alan Hansen was absolutely right,’ Neville said on his Sky Sports podcast.
‘Chelsea need some experience in and around the club. If you have young players on the pitch I also think you need an experienced manager.
‘But it looks like they are going to appoint another young manager again. I just think young players need some authority and guidance around them.’
Chelsea’s spirited 1-1 draw at Man City leaves the Blues fifth in the Premier League, three points outside the Champions League places.
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