Chelsea's hierarchy are reportedly considering sacking Liam Rosenior, despite the Englishman only taking over from Enzo Maresca in January. The Blues are battling for a place in next season's Champions League, though suffered a blow in their ambition after a 1-0 home defeat by Newcastle on Saturday.

They currently sit sixth in the Premier League table, two points off fourth-placed Aston Villa, with just eight games remaining. Although finishing fifth may be enough to reach the Champions League, Chelsea are in danger of missing out completely, which would be both a sporting and financial disappointment considering the levels of investment under Clearlake.

Sky Sports Switzerland claim that some influential figures within that hierarchy believe that Rosenior may not be in charge next season.

There are concerns inside the club about his ability to lead the project long term, despite Chelsea's desire for stability for the first time since the consortium led by Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali took over.

The pressure is mounting at Chelsea and the next few weeks are considered decisive for the future of the project.

There is no change 'set in stone' and despite these doubts, Rosenior remains focused on his immediate objectives with Chelsea, leading them to Champions League football.

Rosenior led Chelsea to seven wins out of his first nine games in charge, but back-to-back defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle have highlighted issues in west London.

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The Blues could not break Eddie Howe's side after conceding in the first half, when poor defending allowed Joe Willock to race in on goal and square the ball for a simple Anthony Gordon tap-in.

After the match, Rosenior claimed a "tactical issue" was the reason behind their lapse at the back and that Chelsea need to cut out such costly mistakes.

"Yeah, there's a tactical issue," he admitted. "We press in a different way to most teams. It's a new way of pressing. We don't step on the press and we don't cover in a position that we should have done.

"Mistakes happen. They had nothing. They had nothing in the game and we gave them a goal. We talk about the press. I think the press was the reason Newcastle had to kick long balls back to us and we controlled the game.

"But in that moment, we make a mistake and it feels like at the moment every mistake we're making is ending up in the back of our net and we need to make sure we stop those mistakes."

Rosenior added: "It was a really difficult day, a frustrating day, because we didn't get the result that we want. But I still think there's a consistency in our performances."