Chelsea are heading back to the Conference League with out-of-his-depth Liam Rosenior! Winners and losers as PSG teach 'world champions' a lesson and continue dominance over England's 'Farmer's League

It's all gone pear-shaped for Liam Rosenior of late. He had made an impressive start to life as Chelsea head coach with a string of fine wins, but those victories are increasingly looking like the result of a new-manager bounce.

Since throwing away a two-goal lead to draw 2-2 at home to Leeds United on February 10, the Blues have only won and performed well simultaneously in two of their subsequent eight games, swatting aside Championship outfit Hull City 4-0 in the FA Cup and punishing a naive Aston Villa 4-1 in the Premier League. It's the other results in that time that paint a clearer picture of where this team is truly at.

Rosenior's men 'set on fire' two points at home to relegation-battling Burnley, drawing 1-1 at home. They then lost 2-1 at rivals Arsenal, their third defeat to the Gunners in a month, before recovering at Villa. An extremely unconvincing 4-2 triumph at second-tier Wrexham in round five of the FA Cup followed, with three straight losses coming as some sort of karma, falling to PSG twice either side of one to Newcastle.

It has to be Rosenior who takes responsibility for Chelsea's worst-ever Champions League knockout elimination. He dropped goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, one of the team's better performers this season, and his replacement of Filip Jorgensen was broadly at fault for a late collapse in the first leg, with the Blues seeing a 2-2 draw quickly turn into a 5-2 hammering.

Back at Stamford Bridge, Rosenior named Chelsea's youngest side on record for a Champions League knockout game, and that included playing 20-year-old centre-back Mamadou Sarr at right-back. Within six minutes, PSG took advantage of this call as Khvicha Kvaratskhelia pinched the ball of the defender and scored the first goal of the evening.

Between declining performances, poor results and strange rhetoric in his press conferences, Rosenior is undoing the hard work of his first few weeks in the job. The club need to reach next season's Champions League to reap the financial rewards, but at this rate they will be returning to the Conference League instead.

In the other dugout, Luis Enrique has galvanised his team for the knockout stages of the Champions League once again. As was the case last year, PSG had to navigate the play-offs in order to reach the last 16, seeing off a domestic rival (Brest in 2024-25, Monaco in 2025-26) before eliminating an English team as their warning to the rest of the continent.

The difference this season is that PSG side didn't yet know what they could achieve. This time last year, they outperformed Liverpool over two legs before winning on penalties on their way to lifting the trophy. But here, they dismantled Chelsea limb from limb. Europe's best, most technically-gifted team are peaking at the perfect time again.

The French media quizzed Luis Enrique on how he's managed to get PSG back on track in such similar circumstances, and he insisted that focusing on the next game is imperative.

"We did what we always do - we talked before the match about the difficulty of approaching these second away games. We were in control, and on the transitions, we were very precise. We scored two quick goals, and that was the key to the match. We are always an unpredictable team for the opposition," he explained.

"We've conceded goals, and we've been looking to improve our game in that area. It's important not to concede a goal. But what's also important is showing the right mentality and playing our style. 'The turning point, the turning point', those are your words. We're looking to improve.

"We always have confidence in the team. You think we can win 4-0? We're always looking to improve. We're very demanding of ourselves, and we're having a very good season."

Poor Sarr. He couldn't have possibly foreseen the second half of his season going this way. The young defender was enjoying a fine campaign with Strasbourg on loan under Rosenior's management, but when Chelsea poached the head coach and wanted a new centre-back to follow in January, he had to up sticks and follow his boss across the Channel.

Sarr has, generally, played pretty well in a Blues shirt to this point too, especially considering the circumstances. There are so few natural leaders in the squad, particularly at the back, so he's had to do a hell of a lot of learning on the job. What he really didn't need was having to play against the best team in Europe in a new position.

With Reece James injured and Malo Gusto ill, Sarr was given the nod at right-back over a more natural fit in Josh Acheampong. Inside six minutes, he had the ball taken from under his feet by Kvaratskhelia leading to a goal. Fortunately and unfortunately, Rosenior withdrew Sarr from the firing line at half-time.

"Mamadou has played in that position for me and Mamadou's been outstanding in games against PSG. And I felt his experience, his feel of the players would help him," Rosenior said at his post-match press conference. "And when you're a player and you make a mistake that early, it can become a really difficult night for you.

"Bearing in mind Malo Gusto was down to start the game and pulled out. He didn't pull out, he was very ill. We gave him as much time to recover. We missed Reece, who's out. Yeah, these are decisions that you want to make and you want to get correct. And in that moment, Mamadou's made a mistake, which has made it a difficult night, because it gave PSG the confidence."

To make matters worse, Sarr's Senegal were stripped of their recent Africa Cup of Nations title while this game was still ongoing. He's probably had better nights.

Kvaratskhelia's decision to leave Napoli midway through their 2024-25 Scudetto-winning campaign came as a surprise to many. It was even more of a shock when he didn't take his talents to the Premier League, instead signing for PSG instead.

Liverpool, on their way to the title and half a year away from spending nearly £300 million on three star attackers, considered the Georgian. Chelsea briefly did too. Arsenal, crying out for a winger of such ability and technique, didn't really enter the mix. The point is that no team from England made a strong enough push for Kvaratskhelia, and so he signed for a PSG side at the time facing a crossroads having stumbled through the league phase of the revamped Champions League.

But Kvaratskhelia and PSG have both been completely vindicated. He provided a team on the fringes with that extra oomph to take them from a nice, easy-on-the-eye outfit to a group of winners. The 25-year-old came off the bench to score twice and wrestle back control of this tie in the first leg, while he all but ended it in the second with his early goal under Sarr's nose.

"We tried to get our confidence back. We are playing our game. To come to Stamford Bridge and win 3-0 is not easy, but we did it, so we know that we are capable of everything. We just have to trust ourselves," Kvaratskhelia said in the mixed zone.

"I think now in the Champions League there is no easy opponent and everyone wants to compete. We just try to play our game, whether or not it is a Premier League team."

What is the point of BlueCo's Chelsea? What are Clearlake Capital trying to achieve? If they are aiming to win the Champions League, then they are lightyears away based on their current trajectory.

England boss Thomas Tuchel, the last Chelsea manager to lift the Champions League, was in attendance on Tuesday. Goodness only knows what he must have been thinking about this current setup, about this group of players, about this ownership who unceremoniously and controversially sacked him only a few months into their reign.

Rosenior picks the players and tries to implement the tactics, but he's not a miracle worker. BlueCo have spent around £2 billion making the team much worse than it was when they were last kings of Europe less than half a decade ago.

There is also an intriguing subplot in regards to BlueCo's way of running operations brewing. Vice-captain Enzo Fernandez suggested post-match that he could look to leave Chelsea in the summer. Now, that is going to prove difficult considering he still has six (six) years left on his current contract and the club would be unwilling to make a loss on someone they paid nine figures for. But if he does manage to force his way out in the coming months, then who's to say their other star players won't push for similar exits too?

Chelsea are now the fourth Premier League side to have been dumped out of the Champions League by PSG in the last 12 months, suffering the same fate as Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal. Tottenham lost twice (once on penalties) to Les Parisiens earlier this season, while Newcastle were held to a draw.

Where the Premier League has been a bit of a slog from an entertainment perspective this year, PSG have contrastingly continued to play football in Enrique's evangelical image. Chelsea tried to bully-ball them with crowding on set pieces, but these efforts proved fruitless.

Each PSG goal was different from the other, and each had its own beauty to it. Kvaratskhelia's opener came from goalkeeper Matvey Safonov's long kick from the back, exploiting Chelsea's high line and making the most of a rare chance to play in behind a team given Ligue 1 sides shut up shop from minute one. Bradley Barcola added a second in Gareth Bale-like fashion, flashing a shot into the top corner after taking a touch to set himself. Senny Mayulu's first-time strike flew in before Sanchez could even move.

It's good for football that a team who want to play progressively are still the team to beat. There's still hope for the purists in this sport.

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