French side Strasbourg has reportedly identified their next head coach. The Ligue 1 club recently parted ways with Patrick Vieira after just one season.
The former Arsenal star arrived last summer in an attempt to bring stability to the team. Strasbourg went through three different managers throughout the 2022/23 campaign.
Vieira managed to keep the club away from a potential relegation fight in his lone season at the helm. Nevertheless, reports out of France claim that the coach openly clashed with team owners over the direction of the club. These gripes apparently included player transactions and even management hirings behind the scenes.
Strasbourg was purchased by BlueCo just weeks ahead of Vieira’s arrival at the club. The consortium is led by American businessman Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital. Prior to buying the French side, BlueCo purchased Premier League side Chelsea for around $2.9 billion in 2022.
With Vieira now out, is set to name Liam Rosenior as Strasbourg’s next head coach. L’Équipe reports that, barring any significant setback, the 40-year-old Englishman will join the French side next week. Rosenior most recently managed English Championship side Hull City. The former defender, who also previously played for the Tigers, initially signed on as their head coach in 2022. It was his first official managerial job after being interim boss of Derby County.
Rosenior arrived at Hull as the club sat dangerously close to the relegation zone midway through the 2022/23 campaign. Nevertheless, the young coach helped right the ship and the team avoided the drop to League One.
He then followed up the impressive feat by taking the Tigers all the way up to seventh in the 2023/24 season. Despite the big jump in the standings, Hull City fired Rosenior after the club missed out on the Championship playoffs by just three points.
Along with undoubtedly improving Hull, BlueCo executives are also quite familiar with the Englishman as well. According to the aforementioned news outlet, Paul Winstanley, a sporting director at Chelsea, previously worked with Rosenior while the two were at Brighton. The soon-to-be Strasbourg coach played for the Seagulls and then became a youth coach after retiring from the pitch.
Strasbourg/BlueCo brass have selected Rosenior over at least two other notable coaching candidates. Joe Edwards and Brian Barry-Murphy were apparently also in the running for the job as well.
Edwards has previous ties to Chelsea, both as a player and youth coach. He most recently managed fellow English side Millwall before being fired back in February. Barry-Murphy, on the other hand, only just departed Manchester City as their Elite Development Squad manager after three years.
Nevertheless, Rosenior will now try to take Strasbourg to the next level. Le Racing have collected just one significant trophy since 2005. Along with improving his new club, the coach must also get on board with BlueCo’s strategy going forward as well. This particular point is seemingly crucial to the team’s execs, as evident by their sacking of Vieira.
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