Chelsea confirm coaching change with two new appointments after Liam Rosenior's arrival

Liam Rosenior becoming Chelsea boss has resulted in several coaching changes within the Blues' academy and the latest of those have been confirmed

Chelsea have confirmed Harry Hudson has replaced Calum McFarlane as under-21s coach after he was made Liam Rosenior's assistant. The latter took charge of his first game for the Blues this past weekend iwith McFarlane in the dugout for that FA Cup win after making quite the impression during his two games in interim charge.

With McFarlane stepping up to the senior team, another new managerial appointment at the club was required with other changes in the academy set up also announced.

A club statement read: "Following Calum McFarlane joining Liam Rosenior’s coaching staff in the Chelsea men’s first team, we can confirm Harry Hudson is the new Under-21s head coach and will be supported by former Chelsea Academy players James Simmonds and Andy Ross.

"McFarlane, formerly Under-21s head coach, has joined Rosenior’s staff on a permanent basis after a two-game stint as interim head coach.

"Chelsea Under-21s are currently third in the Premier League 2 and next face a trip to West Ham United on Monday 19 January. Meanwhile, our Under-19s team, led by the same coaching staff, face PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Youth League knockout round next month.

"Hassan Sulaiman will also be taking on a new role as pathways relationship manager, which will see him support development between the Academy and men’s first-team. Dan Hogan, formerly Under-16s head coach, will lead the Under-18s.

"Dan Hogan will be stepping up to the Under-18s Chelsea Under-18s are preparing for their next challenge in the FA Youth Cup, which comes with a fourth-round tie at Reading this evening (Wednesday).

Academy technical director Glenn van der Kraan said: "The Chelsea Academy has always taken great pride in developing talent, both within players and staff.

"We were delighted that our coaching staff were able to support the men’s team during the recent games against Manchester City and Fulham, with a number of exciting opportunities materialising as a result.

"Our focus now shifts to an important second half of the season, where our players will challenge themselves in elite competitions and continue their growth as individuals and teams."

The focus for McFarlane meanwhile, will now be on upcoming games against Arsenal and Brentford having been personally asked by Rosenior to join his backroom staff, as football.london understands.

Rosenior is not expected to have much time on the training pitches implementing his ideas with Chelsea in action at least once every four days until mid-February.

Managing the fitness of players over that period will be vital to having a strong end to the campaign with Rosenior hinting at exactly that in his latest update on Cole Palmer.

He said: “I had a really good in-depth conversation with Cole [on Monday], I’ve had a good in-depth conversation with the medical team, and we’re at a stage of the season where we’ve got another eight games in four weeks, so it’d be crazy for me to risk any player in this phase of the season.

“I have real faith in this group and they showed that against Charlton. We made eight changes and we had a good performance. I’ll make more changes for Wednesday and I’ll make more changes on Saturday.

“To risk a player’s health in January is a crazy thing to do if you have the ambition that you want to be strong at the end of the season.”