Chelsea owners facing huge manager decision as statement released after brutal blow

Southampton are interested in Strasbourg boss Liam Rosenior but the French club's majority shareholders BlueCo are determined to keep hold of him, football.london understands.

Chelsea's sister-club have been absolutely flying in Ligue 1 this season with the victory over Reims this past weekend their fifth in a row. Just one league defeat since November has seen them shoot up the table and they currently occupy fourth-place.

Djordje Petrovic and Andrey Santos, both on loan from the Blues, have been spectacular for Strasbourg over the last few months. The latter scored his tenth goal of the season in late March while Petrovic has kept six clean sheets in his last eight games.

Former Chelsea ace Diego Moreira has also featured prominently but he will now miss a few games after being shown a straight red card in Strasbourg's weekend victory.

Unsurprisingly, with Rosenior guiding his team to yet another win, interest in his managerial services has ramped up. And Southampton are now looking for a new head coach to lead their 2025/26 Championship campaign as their history-making relegation from the Premier League was confirmed after losing 3-1 to Tottenham on Sunday.

No team has ever seen their fate decided with six games still to play which showcases the task of competing with established Premier League outfits.

The following day, a club statement confirmed the mutual departure of Ivan Juric as manager. "We can confirm that we have today reached an agreement with our Men’s First Team Manager, Ivan Jurić, to end his spell at the club." it read.

"With relegation to the Championship now confirmed, we believe it is important to give fans, players and staff some clarity on the future as we head into a very important summer.

"The process of finding a new manager to lead us as we look to secure an immediate return to the Premier League has now begun and is being led by Group Technical Director Johannes Spors." The Saints have since confirmed that Simon Rusk will lead the team on an interim basis for the rest of the season.

As such, if Southampton make Rosenior their top target and the former Hull boss is open to returning, he will have the chance to finish this campaign at Strasbourg and potentially achieve Champions League football.

Though Todd Boeghly and Behdad Eghbali will be delighted at the possibility of that success, both Chelsea and Strasbourg may not be able to play in the Champions League. That is because UEFA prohibit club's under the same control from partaking in the same competition.

However, Manchester City and Girona both played Champions League football this season with UEFA handling matters on a case-by-case basis. As the Blues sit fourth in the Premier League, there is a good chance that both teams will be in the Champions League which would present a dilemma.

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