Liam Rosenior said he hopes his appointment as head coach will eventually be seen as the best decision Chelsea have ever made.
Although Rosenior has won six of his first seven games since replacing Enzo Maresca earlier this month, the mood in the stands has been far from positive. Many fans are unhappy with the club’s owners and Stamford Bridge felt mutinous when Chelsea were 2-0 down at home to West Ham on Saturday.
The atmosphere shifted when Chelsea mounted a stirring comeback, levelling through two goals from João Pedro before snatching victory with a stoppage-time winner from Enzo Fernández. Yet the unease is palpable. Rosenior, who has never had a job of this stature before, accepts that part of his task is to get supporters onside.
“It’s on me, it’s on me,” the 41-year-old said. “I hope in time they’ll say it’s the best decision this club’s ever made. But I can’t focus on that. This is a really proud club with an incredible tradition, recent history of winning trophies. They want that and I want that too.
“So for a start, for a manager to come in midway through a season with not many sessions and have six wins out of seven games, it’s not a bad way to start. As long as the team showed a fight and the energy and the intensity that they did in that second half, the fans showed that they’ll be with us and they’ll support us. And I’m really enjoying being part of this football club.”
Chelsea had never won a Premier League game from 2-0 down at half-time. “It’s a massive thing to do against a side in good form,” Rosenior said. “A lot of positives, a lot of things we need to improve. I’m not shying away from that. But to see the heart, the mentality, the spirit of the group and their quality in the second half makes me a very, very happy man.
“I have to say the fans were magnificent in the second half. I could sense after two minutes of the second half they were with us. They were right to boo. I would have booed us in the first half. Our performance was nowhere near the level it needed to be collectively in terms of our energy and our decision-making. That’s fair.
“To see them after the game, 45 minutes later, so happy and delighted with what they saw from the team makes me very proud. I said to the players at half-time we can make what probably is the worst feeling of the season the best feeling of the season.”
Nuno Espírito Santo insisted that West Ham can stay up. They are five points below 17th-placed Nottingham Forest, who have a game in hand. “As long as we can keep maintaining the levels of performance like we did in the first half, we’re going to win matches,” Nuno said. “But this match with all the respect that I have for Chelsea, it should be our game.”
