The Athletic FC

Welcome to the Athletic FC podcast with me, Ayo Aikimwalere.

Chelsea are out of the Champions League after an eight-two humbling to PSG.

So after such a great defeat, what does this mean for head coach Liam Rossini?

Joining us today for this one, making his athletic FC podcast debut. We've got James Lawrence

Alcott, broadcaster and content creator. How are you feeling, brother?

Thank you. Yeah, this is surreal. I've never been in the room. So this is wonderful. I just met John

McKenzie. Oh, there we go. Big brains collide. I like it. And also the athletics, Jack Pitbrook as well.

Could have you with us, Jack? Thanks having me. Let's get into this, gent. A big night of Champions League action. We now know the first four quarter finalists, Arsenal, PSG, sporting and also

Ray Al Madrid. But let's focus on Chelsea after what some might call a humiliating defeat to

PSG. It was the joint heaviest defeat in the club's history across a two-legged tie. James,

two things really. Did Rossini get this badly wrong? Or did this show just a

golfing class between these two clubs, especially where recruitment's involved? I think it's a

fascinating one because I think you have the identity of a certain section of Chelsea fans,

and understandably so with the success that they've had over the years.

And so getting done 8-2 like that is just not what they kind of understand a beating correct these days.

At the same time, when you look at the team that was on the pitch there, the resources in

terms of the quality of those players were massively different in my opinion.

And the sort of the resources on

the pitch, partly down to injuries, Reese James and Madagusto meant a change of tactics. But so one

question I sort of asked myself was in terms of where Chelsea are trying to get to, which will

probably lead on to those broader discussions that we can have about Chelsea is that a couple of injuries

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