Liam Rosenior is meeting with Chelsea’s sporting directors on Monday ahead of his expected appointment as head coach, the Press Association understands.
The Strasbourg coach travelled to London on Sunday in order to meet with Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, with the club looking to install a replacement promptly for Enzo Maresca who departed on Thursday.
The former Hull manager is the leading candidate to become Chelsea’s fourth permanent boss since owners BlueCo took control of the club in 2022.
Following Sunday’s 1-1 draw away against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, interim head coach Calum McFarlane said he expected to take first-team training on Monday but that his brief did not extend much beyond that.
Chelsea have moved quickly since parting company with Maresca on New Year’s Day, with the Italian leaving abruptly following a deterioration in his relationship with bosses.
The club were unhappy that he had spoken to City about possibly succeeding Pep Guardiola at the end of the season, and his attempt to use the matter as leverage in negotiations over an extended contract.
There had also been disagreements over the extent of his authority to ignore the advice of medical staff when bringing players back into the team after injury.
Rosenior, who is already employed by BlueCo with Strasbourg also a part of the group’s portfolio, will be expected to work under the same conditions, with matters such as player recruitment largely the responsibility of the club’s five-strong team of sporting directors.
Chelsea have assembled a large squad of young players with limited top-level experience, and the expectation is for the head coach to make good use of them, something Maresca frequently appeared to be unhappy about when regular rotation destabilised the team.
Rosenior has enjoyed success with a similarly young squad at Strasbourg, leading them to a seventh-placed finish in Ligue 1 last season and into the knock-out rounds of the the Conference League.
Speaking on his BBC Sport show, Wayne Rooney – who worked with Rosenior during his time in charge at Derby in 2022 – backed the appointment, saying: “If he goes in there, he won’t disappoint. He’s been waiting for an opportunity like this.
“If you don’t take it now, then you’re never going to take it. And I think he’s done his apprenticeship, he’s done his work to try and get to that job.
“So he’ll have no doubts in his mind that he’s capable of doing that job. And hopefully, very soon, we hear that he is the manager, because for young English coaches I think it’s massive.
“He’s taken chances and hopefully that pays off because I think Liam is as good a coach as I’ve ever worked with. His detail, how he approaches the day-to-day, he’s as good as I’ve worked with.”
