Gary Neville accuses two Chelsea players of ‘stitching up’ Liam Rosenior | Football

Gary Neville has accused Enzo Fernandez and Marc Cucurella of ‘stitiching up’ Liam Rosenior before he was sacked by Chelsea.

Rosenior was sacked by Chelsea on Wednesday afternoon less than 24 hours after the team’s 3-0 defeat away to Brighton in the Premier League.

The defeat at the Amex Stadium means Chelsea have now lost five league games without scoring a goal for the first time since 1912, while the club now look set to miss out on qualification for the Champions League next season.

Calum McFarlane has returned as interim manager for the remainder of the season and will take charge of Chelsea’s FA Cup semi-final against Leeds United at Wembley this Sunday.

Speaking after Rosenior’s exit, Neville hit out at Chelsea’s hierarchy and believes two of the team’s senior players, Fernandez and Cucurella, undermined the manager by admitting that they did not want Enzo Maresca to leave Stamford Bridge in January.

‘I’m not shocked that Liam’s leaving the club, I’m shocked he’s leaving the club, I thought at the end of the season it probably would happen, I thought they may have persevered until the end of the season, given he had a six-year deal but I don’t think it’s a reflection upon Liam at all, obviously he’s lost a lot of football football matches in the last few weeks and he’ll be disappointed with that, but I think it’s time for the owners, sporting directors, players to reflect enormously on their role in terms of what’s happened in the last few weeks,’ Neville told Sky Sports.

‘The coach always takes the hit, that’s the role they’re in, they know they’re the ones that gets sacked, it’s easy to move a coach out than it is 25 players.

‘I mean the owners are getting it really badly wrong there, let’s be really clear. I said at the time, they’ve got a group of talented players, young sporting directors in respect of experience related to Europe, an ownership that’s relatively young in respect of being only two or three years in, you need some experience somewhere in the club. They put a very young manager in, I think Liam should get on with his life tomorrow, pretended the last 107 days never happened, don’t think it’s a reflection upon himself, go and get a job at a club you can trust and leave the mess at Chelsea behind and don’t think anything of it.

‘The results have not been good enough and to be fair, I have no other words than to say that when results are not good enough a manager gets sacked.

‘But come on… Cucurella and Fernandez, experienced players, the only probably two experienced players that Chelsea have got, stitching him up in the last few weeks by calling out the fact that they basically love Maresca. Well, they weren’t doing that well under him. I think Maresca’s a fine coach and a good coach as well.

‘But this policy at Chelsea, this plan, I don’t see it. These six year, eight-year agreements you see, it’s almost laughable from the start whether it’s for a manager or a player. The owners haven’t got a clue what they’re doing.

‘I’ve made massive mistakes as an owner [at Salford] but sometimes you’ve got to accept that and sometimes we’ve spoken about the challenges we’ve had but they’re all over the place and I just don’t get it really.

‘I think you deserve what you get in football, and that’s every single ownership and it’s a reflection upon them, not a reflection on the coach who, to be fair, probably shouldn’t have been advanced as quickly as he was into the role, he should’ve bene left to develop his career, a promising young coach, well thought of.

You don’t turn down the Chelsea job, you down turn down a big job like that, I can see why it was appealing, the reality of it is he just needs to get on with his coaching career now and put it behind him as quickly as he possibly can because it’s a club at this moment in time that’s a little bit crazy in its decision making.

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