Liam Rosenior hailed for transforming ex-Chelsea bomb squad member at Strasbourg

Liam Rosenior confirmed on Tuesday that he will be the new Chelsea head coach (Picture: Getty)

Frank Leboeuf has hailed Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior for transforming the club’s former bomb squad member Ben Chilwell at Strasbourg .

Chelsea officially announced Rosenior’s appointment as head coach on Tuesday, replacing Enzo Maresca , who left the Blues on New Year’s Day.

The 41-year-old has already been warned that he faces two key ‘problems’ at Stamford Bridge despite doing a fine job at BlueCo-owned Strasbourg.

Under Rosenior’s management, Strasbourg finished seventh in the French top-flight last season to qualify for Europe for the first time in six years.

This term, the Ligue 1 side have topped the league phase of the Conference League as one of only two unbeaten teams in the competition.

But Leboeuf has been most impressed by Rosenior’s ability to get Chilwell back to his best after Chelsea sold him to Strasbourg in the summer.

‘He’s a fantastic coach,’ former Chelsea star Leboeuf said on ESPN . ‘He knows how to make people work and work together.

Frank Leboeuf says Liam Rosenior is a ‘fantastic coach’ (Picture: ESPN)

‘I want to wish him the best because he has all the knowledge and the psychology to make people work and work very well.

‘He did it with young players, so I don’t know what’s going to happen with experienced players, but we can see [it] with Chilwell playing for Strasbourg this season.

‘According to what I saw, and what some people would tell me, [he’s] a different guy from before he left Chelsea.

Ben Chilwell is a ‘different guy’ after working with Liam Rosenior (Picture: Getty)

‘So, I guess he also knows how to work with experienced players. It’s going to be a good thing, I think, for Chelsea. I wish him good luck.’

Chilwell played a total of 107 games for Chelsea from 2020 to 2025 with the Blues winning the Champions League, Club World Cup and Super Cup during his time in west London.

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The 29-year-old left-back, capped 21 times by England, was named in the 2020-21 UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season.

Chilwell was eventually placed in Chelsea’s bomb squad by Maresca in the summer of 2024 with the Italian boss making it clear that the defender was not part of his plans and keen to offload players not fitting his system.

The Englishman was part of the group excluded from first-team training and encouraged to leave the club as soon as possible.

Chilwell, who cost Chelsea around £45m in 2020, eventually joined Strasbourg on September 1 last year, signing a two-year contract.