Liam Rosenior is ready for a emotional return to Hull, having shared the poignant story of his late grandmother’s love for the Championships side he represented as a player and manager.
Chelsea kick off this weekend’s FA Cup fourth-round action away at the MKM Stadium, and Rosenior senses some divine intervention from his ‘Nanny Cath’, who was a season-ticket holder for the Tigers, helped draw these two teams together. She is now buried within a mile of Hull’s training ground, and there will be a Rosenior family reunion for this tie in the Yorkshire city.
While Chelsea’s head coach is aiming to avoid an FA Cup upset, this match will mean a great deal to the 41-year-old, as he explained: ‘I went to Hull on trial, I was without a contract, and the way I told my Nanny Cath was that I took her to the local Harvester, sat her down, and said, “I’m going to sign for Hull City”. That was amazing.
‘She was a season ticket holder already. Sadly, she passed away. She’s buried less than a mile from the training ground. When I took the job at Hull, it was pretty much a year to the day we had her funeral. You see I’m emotional speaking about it. That club means a lot to me.
‘I swear she had a hand to play in the draw. I used to go to Hull when I was a little boy in the summer holidays when she lived there. I went to Boothferry Park in the summer to watch them play. It’s strange. I’m from London. I have a connection with Hull. Hull’s also twinned with Freetown, and I’m from Sierra Leone. There are a lot of omens with Hull.
‘It’s amazing for me, amazing for my family to get together. They’re going to spend a good night on Friday together as a family, which is difficult because we live so far apart. But I’m focused on the game and doing the best I can.’
Chelsea boss Liam Rosenior is preparing to take his Chelsea team to former side Hull City
Rosenior finished as an FA Cup runner-up with Hull in 2014, losing 3-2 in the final to an Arsenal side captained by Mikel Arteta after extra time. ‘I went from being on trial at Hull to being a captain in Europe there and playing in an FA Cup final,’ the Blues boss added. ‘Those are the memories that you want and those are the memories I want to create at this club now.’
Meanwhile, Rosenior wants Chelsea’s players to quit their habit of switching off in matches, as was the case when they surrendered their 2-0 lead to draw 2-2 with Leeds on Tuesday.
The next morning, Rosenior called a squad meeting at their Cobham base which included watching back clips from that Premier League collapse, such as the two goals they conceded amid dire defending at Stamford Bridge.
‘It wasn’t just the two mistakes,’ Rosenior said. ‘There are certain things we spoke about: in terms of how we manage after we score a goal, for example, what that looks like.
‘My job is to try to make the team as good as possible, as fast as possible, and we had a really, really good meeting to try to clear that up. Football is about mistakes. There will always be mistakes. What I have to say is why I was so frustrated was that there was so much good.
‘We’re now talking about the mistakes rather than all the positives and that’s what the players need to feel so that the next time we perform in that manner, we’re talking about three points.’
