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Enzo Fernández has been dropped for Chelsea’s next two games, with Liam Rosenior suggesting the club’s vice-captain had “crossed a line” in recent comments over his future.

Following what he described as the worst 10 days of his career, Rosenior insisted he had to punish Fernández, who first questioned whether he would remain at Stamford Bridge beyond this season and then suggested he would like to live in Madrid – a comment widely viewed as courting a move to Real Madrid, a club with which he has frequently been linked.

While he will still train with Chelsea’s first-team squad, 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.

“For Enzo, it’s disappointing to speak in that way,” said Rosenior. “What I will say about Enzo is in terms of him as a character, as a person, I’ve got no bad words to say about him. But I think a line was crossed in terms of our culture and what we want to build. So we had to make a sanction and that was a decision we’ve made. The door is not closed on Enzo. That’s very important. It’s a sanction. You have to protect that culture. I think in terms of that, the line was crossed in the international break.”

Fernández joined Chelsea from Benfica for what was then a British record fee of £107m in January 2023. Asked whether he believed the Argentine continues to see his future at the club, Rosenior said: “I can’t speak for him.”

Fernández was not alone in courting controversy during the international break. Marc Cucurella used an interview to criticise the decision to sack Rosenior’s predecessor Enzo Maresca and suggested he would be open to a return to his former club Barcelona. Rosenior confirmed he had spoken to the Spaniard and urged him to air any grievances direct. “Marc is fully committed,” he said. “He wants to be here. He’s made that very, very clear to me.”

Chelsea lost four successive matches prior to the international break, exiting the Champions League in a bruising 8-2 aggregate defeat to Paris Saint-Germain during a period Rosenior described as “the most difficult 10 days of my career as a player or a coach”.

Despite Fernández and Cucurella’s comments, the head coach insisted there remains a sense of unity.

“I’ll make this very, very clear – there is not a rift in the dressing room,” he said. “There’s not a group of players who are not speaking to another group of players. We are together. We go through, and every club goes through, difficult moments in the season. We had a very, very difficult 10 days as a football club in terms of the results, in terms of being out of the Champions League.

“Now’s the time for us to come together, back from the international break, and make sure we commit and perform in the manner that we need to.”

Rosenior also hinted further players will follow the club captain Reece James in soon committing themselves to Chelsea by signing new contracts: “You’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks in terms of the commitment of the players to this project.”

James, Trevoh Chalobah and Levi Colwill remain out for Port Vale’s visit, but Estêvão and Jamie Gittens are available after injuries.