Liam Rosenior starts spectacularly with Chelsea, as Charlton Athletic get lost in the fog at The Valley

Charlton Athletic (0) 1 v Chelsea (1) 5

Hato 45+5

Tosin Adarabioyo 50

Leaburn 57

Guiu 62

Neto 90+1

Fernández (pen) 90+4

By Kaz Mochlinski at The Valley

FA Cup

Third Round

Liam Rosenior’s reign at Chelsea got off to a spectacular start with a 5-1 thrashing of Charlton Athletic as the visitors were victorious at The Valley and eventually ended up enjoying themselves on their new head coach’s debut.

Jorrel Hato’s first goal for Chelsea opened the scoring before the break, and Marc Guiu’s first goal in English domestic football secured the success in the second half, enabling the Blues to progress comfortably through the FA Cup third round tie.

It may have looked like a very tricky test when the draw was made, but all of Charlton’s endeavour and enthusiasm could not disguise that ultimately they were badly outclassed and run ragged by the time of the final whistle.

The main interest was inevitably in the change of staff in the away technical area. As well as emerging from the Thameside mist with a positive result, Rosenior immediately demonstrated too that off the pitch he will provide a big upgrade on his predecessor.

He showed himself to be a much better communicator than Enzo Maresca in the club’s main public-facing role, replacing evasiveness and obfuscation by impressive insights, shared articulately, eloquently and engagingly.

Without remotely questioning his job title, Rosenior indicated that the very limited time he had for training sessions so far meant he was able to do rather more managing than coaching of a squad which he views as already very technically and tactically astute.

At the outset, Rosenior emphasised continuity rather than revolution in his initial team line-up, selecting a side almost identical to the last one of Maresca’s, specifically including 10 of the 11 who started Chelsea’s previous cup game.

The only change from that 3-1 win at Cardiff City in the League Cup quarter-finals a month ago was Tyrique George being replaced by Alejandro Garnacho, who had scored a match-winning double after coming on as a substitute in South Wales.

Garnacho was one of just two regular first-choice players named in the team against Charlton, along with Moisés Caicedo as captain. Exactly as in Cardiff, Cole Palmer was rested and Marc Cucurella was suspended once again.

In between the cup contests, Chelsea had been winless in five Premier League games. Making the trip to South-East London for a high-profile derby as his first outing, Rosenior retained only three players from the 2-1 defeat at Fulham in midweek.

The first half was indistinguishable from a Maresca match, with Chelsea dominating possession but doing disappointingly little with it. However, the game was divided into three distinct phases, with the Blues improving immensely as they went on.

The second section came after they scored and their confidence grew, pushing on to establish a winning lead. But Rosenior will have been best pleased by the final quarter, for which he brought on Enzo Fernández and Estêvão Willian.

Unsurprisingly, when you can send on subs like those, plus Liam Delap and Pedro Neto, it will enormously enhance your attacking threat, and Chelsea were able to extend their margin of victory late on, with Charlton finally flagging in the fog.

The Addicks run without a win now stands at five matches, and going back further it is one victory in their last 12 games. Occupying 19th place in the second tier, they did well to hold out as long as they did but will be very frustrated with the goals conceded.

The Charlton manager Nathan Jones afterwards expressed his fury at some of his team’s defending, with the stalemate being broken from a simple Caicedo cross that was headed out straight to Hato for a superb first-time left-footed strike.

Then a perfectly-delivered Facundo Buonanotte left-footed free-kick from the right wing found Tosin Adarabioyo ghosting in unmarked for a near-post flick-header to score his first goal of the season.

Having gone in front in the 50th minute of the first half, Chelsea doubled their advantage after the interval in the 50th minute of the match overall, as they took control of the encounter through goals on either side of half-time.

Charlton however hit back spiritedly, scoring from a set-piece themselves as a James Bree corner was met by Lloyd Jones’s head to bring a diving save out of Filip Jørgensen, only for Miles Leaburn to reach the rebound first and blast it into the net.

Despite the Valiants being backed vociferously by the capacity crowd, the biggest at The Valley for a FA Cup tie since 1976, Chelsea did not take long to restore their two-goal cushion, with a score made in Argentina.

Garnacho ran down the left and played a square pass to set up a shot by his countryman Buonanotte. The clever playmaker’s first-time left-footed curler was saved low by Will Mannion, but the ball rolled loose in front of the goal.

Guiu reacted faster than the Charlton defenders to finish first-time left-footed - and join Hato as another 19-year-old to score on this Saturday night. With fog filling The Valley ever more thickly, Chelsea were out of sight and determined to remain that way.

After their first two goals were scored by defenders, the Blues added two more from substitutes in the closing stages. Fernández played a big part in both, getting an assist and then scoring himself from the penalty spot with the last kick of the game.

He drove down the right and picked out Neto on the left side of the penalty area to cut in onto his right foot for a sharp low strike. And Fernández also contributed to the fine move on the right wing which got the spot kick.

Delap provided the link with a first-time round-the-corner pass to Estêvão, who mesmerised the defence before drawing Mannion off his line for a challenge which was indisputably a foul, even in the absence of VAR.

Hato had scored in the fifth minute of stoppage time at the conclusion of the first half, and Fernández’s penalty in the fourth minute of time added on at the end of the second period wrapped up the 5-1 win.

The scoreline equalled Chelsea’s best results this season, at West Ham United in August and also against Ajax in October. But beating Charlton provided Rosenior with a more personal and significant landmark.

He became the first manager / head coach for 10 years to win his opening match in charge of Chelsea. Since Antonio Conte in 2016, none of the subsequent nine permanent / temporary incumbents had done so (including Frank Lampard twice).

The Blues fans were still not happy, singing Roman Abramovich’s name and chanting against the present ownership, just as they had at Fulham three days earlier. They were clearly unconcerned about the far greater pain of being a Charlton supporter.

The last time that the Addicks advanced through the third round of the FA Cup was in the 2013-14 season. And they now face a fight against relegation to the third tier for the rest of the current campaign.

Meanwhile, Chelsea’s ride with Rosenior is shaping up to be potentially very exciting.