Liam Rosenior sacked as Chelsea break a 114-year-old record – And it’s entirely their fault

In the year 1912, the world lost the Titanic. Chelsea, just seven years old as a football club, lost five league games in a row without scoring. It was the kind of misfortune you chalk up to the rough edges of a newly formed club finding its feet in the First Division.

More than a century later, the Blues have matched that wretched record, and unlike 1912, nobody gets to blame misfortune.

This disaster has been entirely self-inflicted authored by an ownership group that has turned Chelsea into the most expensive soap opera in football history.

Chelsea’s demise from World Champions to a record that died in 1912

When Enzo Maresca led Chelsea to the Club World Cup title in the summer of 2025, demolishing PSG 4-0 in the final, it felt like the Boehly era had finally found its footing.

Chelsea were fifth by the time they sacked him on New Year’s Day 2026. They had won only once in seven Premier League games, but they were still very much in the Champions League conversation. The players knew it too.

Enzo Fernandez, Malo Gusto and Marc Cucurella all went public about their confusion over Maresca’s exit. That confusion appears to have turned into something darker on the pitch. Since his departure, the numbers have only gotten worse. In fact, catastrophic.

Five defeats without scoring, no shots on target against Brighton, an xG of 0.04 in that first half, lower than in any of the 114 halves Maresca managed. The losses keep coming: Brighton (3-0), Manchester United (1-0), Manchester City (3-0), Everton (3-0), Newcastle (1-0).

Rosenior called Tuesday’s performance “indefensible.” By Wednesday, he was gone. He became the fifth Chelsea head coach to leave since Boehly took over in 2022, having lasted just 107 days on a six-and-a-half-year contract.

BlueCo, Chelsea’s ownership that keeps breaking things

Enzo Maresca was sacked, not only because of results, but because he pushed back on the board, as per Sky Sports. He wanted a centre-back after Levi Colwill’s injury, didn’t get one, and made the mistake of saying so publicly.

The hierarchy, apparently more concerned with compliance than football logic, showed him the door. Just like that, they had replaced a Club World Cup winner with a manager poached from Strasbourg, a club they happen to own.

That decision alone tells you everything about how Chelsea operate. They are not a football club in any coherent sense. They have spent over £1 billion since 2022, assembled a bloated squad of players with overlapping profiles.

Chelsea have cycled through manager after manager, producing this, a team unable to score or defend, and cannot string two performances together. Chelsea’s problem is structural. And until the ownership changes its approach, no manager, however good, stands a chance.