Liam Rosenior is confident Chelsea can hold on to their star players this summer despite a recent dip that has placed their Champions League qualification in jeopardy.
The Blues face a fight to finish in the Premier League’s top five after a run of one league win in five saw them drop to sixth before Saturday’s trip to Everton.
Following Tuesday’s 8-2 aggregate hammering at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain that sent the club to their biggest ever European defeat and drew a furious reaction from fans, midfielder Enzo Fernández told ESPN in Argentina that he was unsure whether he would still be at Stamford Bridge next season.
In January, reports emerged that Cole Palmer was homesick in London and favoured a move back to his native Manchester, though Rosenior at the time denied that the England international was pining for a move away.
Both players are tied to long contracts. Fernández still has five years to run on the deal he signed when joining from Benfica for a then British record fee of £107 million ($143m) in 2023, while Palmer is contracted until 2032 after agreeing an extension two years ago.
Nevertheless, a humiliating loss to the European champions highlighted the gulf between Chelsea’s current level and Europe’s best, and their ability to retain their best players may yet turn out to be pegged to their participation in next season’s Champions League.
“I have a very, very good relationship with the players because we speak all the time,” Rosenior said, who said on Thursday that Fernández had told him he is happy at the club.
“Not just about football, or the situation with their contracts, but about their life, with their kids, how their kids are, how school is.
“I have a very, very close relationship with Enzo and with the other players. In terms of contracts and where they want to be, there’s not one player at this club since I’ve been here that has said that he doesn’t want to be here in the summer.
“In fact, the conversations are more about how we improve, what we can do as a group to improve, what we need to do to win in this moment. And that’s where we are at the moment.”
Asked whether Fernández and Palmer wanted to stay, he said: “They love it here.”
Failure to make the Champions League would mean missing out for the third time in four seasons and leave the club with reduced room to manoeuvre financially.
Together with reduced revenues there would be the added pressure of needing to fall in line with UEFA regulations relating to income and spending.
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Rosenior would not be drawn on whether the club could be forced to sell in the event they fail to make the cut, and said the team’s top-five fate remains in their hands.
“In my conversations with the ownership and the sporting directors, our plans are not solely based on whether we make the Champions League or not,” he said.
“But there’s so many ifs. There’s so many ifs in life. So we just have to make sure that the ‘if’ that we create is as positive as possible and we’re still in a position to do that.”
