Three-nil down at Everton, four defeats on the spin, and sitting sixth with seven games to go. Chelsea’s season has gone sideways fast, and Alan Shearer wasn’t in the mood to dress it up on Match of the Day.
The Premier League’s all-time top scorer was blunt: until Chelsea fix their goalkeeping and centre-back positions, they simply won’t be in the title conversation. “Chelsea haven’t got a top class goalkeeper, and they haven’t got a top class centre half despite the money they’ve spent,” he said. “And until they get that, they’re not going to compete.”
Wayne Rooney, sitting alongside him in the studio, agreed and went a step further. He reckons the forward line needs sorting too. “I still think the forwards as well. I know Joao Pedro has done well, but I think if you are going to challenge for the big trophies, you need that centre forward who is going to inspire you.”
The timing of those comments stings. Saturday’s loss at the Hill Dickinson Stadium was as bad as results come, and the manner of it made things worse. Wesley Fofana had a really poor game at the back, and Robert Sanchez gifted Everton their second goal with a mistake that is hard to defend. The clean sheet issue is becoming a proper problem too, and a glance at the latest Chelsea stats only underlines how worrying the trend has become. Chelsea haven’t kept one in the league since they beat Brentford on 17 January. That’s now two months without shutting a team out.
Liam Rosenior is under serious pressure. The fan base is running out of patience, and it’s increasingly hard to argue that the players are buying into what he’s asking of them. He’s been rotating his defensive personnel constantly without ever landing on a combination that looks remotely settled, something Shearer had also flagged in the weeks building up to this result.
The frustration among supporters is understandable. This is a club that has pumped enormous sums into their squad across multiple windows. The argument that they simply haven’t had the money to fix these issues doesn’t hold up. What they lack right now isn’t funds, it’s the right players in the positions that matter most.
With seven games of the season remaining and a top-four finish looking shaky, the summer window is already the main topic of conversation around Stamford Bridge. Chelsea were quiet in January, but all signs point to a busy few months ahead. Whether Rosenior is still in charge to oversee it is another question entirely.
