Row Z: The art of the relegation statement and Liam Rosenior's best bits

AFC BournemouthArsenalAston VillaBrentfordBrighton & Hove AlbionBurnleyChelseaCrystal PalaceEvertonFulhamLeeds UnitedLiverpoolManchester CityManchester UnitedNewcastle UnitedNottingham ForestSunderlandTottenham HotspurWest Ham UnitedWolverhampton WanderersScores & ScheduleStandingsFantasyThe Athletic FC NewsletterPodcastsRow Z: The art of the relegation statement and Liam Rosenior’s best bits Getty Images Share articleWelcome to Row Z, The Athletic’s weekly column that shines a light on the bonkers side of the game. From clubs to managers, players to organisations, every week we’ll bring you the absurdities, the greed, the contradictions, the preposterousness and the oddities of the sport we all love… You’ve heard of clubs making statements that they’ve sacked their manager or head coach, but what about relegation apology statements? Yep, this has genuinely become a thing in recent years. When Burnley, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Leicester City were all demoted last week, each club published a few hundred words that very night saying they were all really sorry. Why? Well, perhaps saying nothing in the modern age just isn’t an option. As a club, you need to try to shift some season tickets to gullible customers rebuild the fractured relationship with your club’s loyal, long-suffering supporters. It’s important to manufacture some positivity for when the new kit goes on sale show you care. Burnley, Wolves and Leicester’s statements showed that while relegation apologies might be a relatively new phenomenon, there is already a set template as to the content. 1. Get it out there quickly, but not too quickly Timing is everything here. You want it online before the social media clamour becomes too rancid, but not quickly enough to shatter the illusion that it wasn’t written before the match. Wolves’ big apology went live at 10.45pm (51 minutes after relegation was confirmed by West Ham United’s draw at Crystal Palace), while Leicester and Burnley plumped for 11pm, respectively 81 and 65 minutes after their fates had been confirmed. All three statements were accompanied by a picture of the club’s empty stadium, with Burnley’s appropriately shadowed out in darkness. Nice touch. 2. Express your disappointment/pain/sorrow Pretty straightforward one, this. You’ve got to at least pretend that it means just as much to you as it does to the supporters. Leicester (via chairman Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha): “I am truly sorry for the disappointment we have caused. We have experienced the highest highs and now the lowest lows, and the pain is shared by all of us.” Burnley: “The outcome is not what anyone connected with the club wanted.” Wolves (via chairman Nathan Shi): “Confirmation of our relegation is a difficult moment for everyone connected to Wolves.” 3. Say something nice about the supporters They may have incessantly booed you off the pitch, verbally torn into the players, manager and/or board, and given you relentless abuse on social media, but don’t forget those season tickets. Leicester: “We do not take your support for granted, especially at moments like this.” Burnley: “We would like to thank our supporters that have been with us through every high and low, home and away.” Wolves: “We know this season has tested your loyalty and patience. Your backing, home and away, has not been taken for granted.” 4. Say something positive about the future and make sure you use the word ‘forward’ This can be going forward, moving forward, basically just something to do with the future, i.e., not lingering on the absolutely horrific season you have just presided over. Leicester: “Our objective is clear — to respond strongly and compete to move this club forward again.” Burnley: “(Burnley) has never been defined by a single season, but by its ability to respond and move forward.” Wolves: “You deserve better and giving you a club you can genuinely be proud of is what drives everything we do from this point forward.” “I hope in time they’ll say it’s the best decision this club’s ever made,” Liam Rosenior there, genuinely referring to his appointment as Chelsea head coach, rather than his sacking. Who else was stunned that hiring someone whose only previous managerial experience was with Strasbourg and Hull City to manage Chelsea didn’t work? Still, we might have expected Rosenior to last slightly longer than 107 days of his five-and-a-half-year deal (which, crucially, had an option of another year). He was in charge for precisely 4.5 per cent of his potential tenure, yet in that time, Rosenior managed to leave an indelible mark on the history not just of Chelsea, but of English football. He insisted it wasn’t his idea, but the sight of Chelsea’s players forming an 11-man cuddle while engulfed referee Paul Tierney gave a “no f**ks given” expression directly into the camera will forever be associated with Liam “marginal gains” Rosenior, not least because he said afterwards… “My players made a decision that they wanted to be around the ball, to respect the ball.” Imagine Sir Alex Ferguson encouraging his players to display a moment of tactile unity before the match has even kicked off and then bleating that the referee had tried to stop them. The game’s completely gone. The tactical note at 8-2 down with five minutes left With his players being humiliated by Paris Saint-Germain, who were 3-0 up at Stamford Bridge and 8-2 ahead on aggregate, Rosenior passing a note to a bemused Alejandro Garnacho (who then took 27 seconds to trudge onto the field and pass it to a team-mate) was possibly his finest hour. As The Athletic concluded, the note read: “Proud of you for achieving neutral goal liquidity in Q4.” “The potential for this club, for this group, is limitless. And I won’t limit limitlessness.” One of many high-performance, David Brent-esque quotes Rosenior brought to the Premier League table. A couple of days before he got the chop, it was appropriate that an account purporting to belong to Marc Cucurella’s barber seemed to leak Rosenior’s final team news on social media. It was also fitting that Brighton & Hove Albion ended Rosenior’s tenure and inflicted more pain on Chelsea, given that the Blues have taken one manager (Graham Potter, who was sacked six months into his five-year Chelsea contract), numerous backroom staff, one head of recruitment, five senior players and several youth players (all to the estimated tune of £280million/$380m) from the Seagulls in recent years. They’re also two points and two places below Brighton in the table, incidentally, despite an outlay of more than £1.5billion on transfers alone since 2022. Still, good news about the FA Cup final. “Life is just a series of peaks and troughs, yeah?. You don’t know whether you’re in a trough until you’re climbing out, or on a peak until you’re coming down.” To be fair, that wasn’t Rosenior, that was Brent, but Row Z had you fooled for a second, admit it. We haven’t heard from Liam yet, but when we do, it’ll probably be something along the lines of: “This chapter closes, but the learnings continue. I’m grateful for this opportunity to reflect and reset. Progress is multi-dimensional, yeah? Respect the dugout.” Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms