Chelsea vice-captain Enzo Fernández has been dropped for the club’s next two games after suggesting he would like to live in Madrid, a comment widely seen as courting a move to Real Madrid. Manager Liam Rosenior said the midfielder had “crossed a line” regarding the club’s culture.
Fernández will not be available for Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final against Port Vale nor next Sunday’s Premier League match against Manchester City, though he will continue to train with the first-team squad. “For Enzo, it’s disappointing to speak in that way,” Rosenior said. “A line was crossed in terms of our culture and what we want to build. So we had to make a sanction.”
The midfielder’s agent, Javier Pastore, branded the punishment “completely unfair”, noting that Fernández was asked which European city he would like to live in and replied Madrid due to language and culture. “At no point does he say he wants to leave Chelsea or London,” Pastore told The Athletic.
Rosenior described the period before the international break as “the most difficult 10 days of my career”, after Chelsea lost four successive matches and exited the Champions League with an 8-2 aggregate defeat to Paris Saint-Germain. He insisted there is no rift in the dressing room, despite Marc Cucurella also courting controversy by criticising the sacking of former boss Enzo Maresca and expressing openness to a Barcelona return.
Rosenior confirmed he had spoken to Cucurella, who he said is “fully committed” to Chelsea. The manager also hinted that more players will soon follow captain Reece James in signing new contracts, saying: “You’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks in terms of the commitment of the players to this project.”
