FOR SOME TIME now, the Chelsea job has been one of the more peculiar posts in world football.
Back in the 2000s and 2010s, the job attracted some of the biggest names in the game. José Mourinho (twice), Carlo Ancelotti, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Rafael Benitez (which was doomed from the start), Antonio Conte.
Yet since the end of the Roman Abramovich era, the position has been filled by up-and-comers as much as it has world-beaters. Since Conte departed in a trademark fury in 2018, only Thomas Tuchel (the last truly good fit at Stamford Bridge), and to a lesser extent, Maurico Pochettino, arrived with the kind of CV you’d expect for a Premier League title-contending side.
Maurizio Sarri was a Serie A winner without being one of the most in-demand managers around. Frank Lampard would not have got the job without his ‘Super Frank’ club legend status. Graham Potter was out of his depth, but at least more experienced than Liam Rosenior, while Enzo Maresca’s appointment summed the whole slow decline up, coming from Championship-winners Leicester and doing a decent job while all the while seeing Chelsea as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
Alonso was a high-profile appointment. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
So after a season in which the Chelsea machine churned through Maresca, Rosenior and interim Calum McFarlane (twice), anything felt possible as BlueCo dipped back to the management market for the sixth time (including Lampard’s interim spell) since taking control of the club in 2022.
Maybe we should get the Brighton manager in to coach all these ex-Brighton players?
Does anyone here have José’s number?
What’s Avram Grant doing these days?
This Ted Lasso guy seems popular?
In that context the appointment of Xabi Alonso felt surprisingly sensible, and marked the first time in an age Chelsea had signed a manager whose profile appears to fit the demands and scale of the job. The first time in an age Chelsea attracted a manager other major clubs would love to have on board. The first time in an age you actually wonder why a highly-rated manager felt attracted to the Chelsea job.
Firstly, that title feels significant. Alonso is the first Chelsea boss appointed as ‘manager’, rather than ‘head coach’, since the Special One’s second stint started in 2013.
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The word was Alonso would have more authority than his recent predecessors, and already, the Spaniard appears to be getting his way through that more hands-on brief, with this summer’s dealings marking a notable shift in the way the club has been culturally structured since the American owners stepped into the ashes of the Abramovich era.
The former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder outlined his key objectives as “hard work, building the right culture and winning trophies”. He’ll immediately command respect given his own playing history, and has wasted no time in addressing the fact his squad needed an injection of experience and leadership, badly missing since Thiago Silva left Stamford Bridge two summers ago.
Still, the signings of Jordan Henderson (36) and Danny Welbeck (35) came as bolts out of the blue. It is unclear how much football Henderson will play in Chelsea’s midfield, with the former Liverpool captain’s true value likely to come on the training pitch and in the changing room. Welbeck is a fine striker (13 Premier League goals last season) and continues the Chelsea tradition of plucking players and staff from Brighton – the reported €6m spend on Welbeck is worth it if only to stop his reliable stream of goals against the Blues (six in the last six seasons).
Danny Welbeck has been brought in from Brighton. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Elsewhere, you don’t need reams of spreadsheets to see where this squad needs to improve. The only charts in which Chelsea featured in the top end last season were not ones any well-functioning football club should be associated with.
Most red cards? Chelsea. Eight in the Premier League alone – twice that of the nearest club – and a staggering 11 in all competitions.
Put some of that indiscipline down to Chelsea having the youngest squad in the league (average age 23.4 years), although that caveat only makes some of their other returns harder to digest. For all that youth and lovely potential sell-on value, Chelsea were outrun by their opponents in all but one of their Premier League games.
Improving the discipline and workrate will go a long way to lifting Chelsea up from their lowly 10th-place finish last season, where the club lost as many games as they won (14).
Another key objective will be to get Cole Palmer back to his best. This work started early, with Palmer available to train right from the beginning of Chelsea’s pre-season. Indeed, most of the group were, with only 12 of Chelsea’s bloated squad called up for World Cup duty – the same return as Crystal Palace and Sunderland. Manchester City, by comparison, had 19.
Palmer didn’t make England manager Thomas Tuchel’s final cut after an underwhelming campaign where the 24-year-old struggled for fitness and consistency. An unfortunate development for the many companies (including Nike and Coca-Cola) who shelled out big bucks to make Palmer the face of their World Cup advertising campaigns. Over 26 Premier League appearances in 2025/26 Palmer delivered just 11 goal involvements (10 goals and one assist). A year previously, where he featured in all but one of Chelsea’s Premier League fixtures, his return was 24 (15 goals, nine assists).
One of the first moves toward addressing this might be to relocate Palmer. His heat-map for last season shows he did most of his work between the middle of the pitch and the right wing. Alonso might encourage Palmer to play more centrally as a number 10, with €138m summer signing Morgan Rogers likely to take the left wing spot while Estêvão and Pedro Neto serve as the leading options on the right.
Chelsea need to get more from Cole Palmer this season. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Whatever the configuration, Chelsea need more regular goal contributors. Alonso will hope to ease the burden on João Pedro (another overlooked for World Cup duty with Brazil), who led the way with 20 goals – Enzo Fernández was second with 15.
Below that, the goals were spread across a cluster of attacking midfield players while striker Liam Delap, a €35million signing from Ipswich, found the net just twice, the same tally as the likes of Josh Acheampong and Tosin Adarabioyo.
Chelsea’s problems in front of goal were encapsulated in the five-game goalless run which led to Rosenior’s early dismissal. Unsurprisingly, Chelsea are expected to trim some of the fat up front, with Nicolas Jackson (who spent last season at Bayern Munich) and Marc Guiu among the other options in one of the more bloated areas of the squad.
Rogers should add to Chelsea’s attacking threat, notching 14 goals and 12 assists across his 55 outings with Aston Villa last season. And it should help that Rogers enjoys a close relationship with Palmer, the pair both coming through Manchester City’s youth system. Indeed, Palmer’s trademark ‘cold’ celebration was first delivered as a response and tribute to his pal, Rogers.
Chelsea have also brought in defender Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace for €60m, Italian right-back Marco Palestra for €60m (Atalanta), 19-year-old right-winger Geovany Quenda for €50m (Sporting) and versatile Argentinian midfielder Valentín Barco for €40m (Strasbourg).
Chelsea spent €60m to sign Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Marc Cucurella, a senior player in a young Chelsea squad, departed for Real Madrid (€55m) while Andrey Santos (Manchester United, €56m), Trevoh Chalobah (Como, €30m), and Tyrique George (Everton, €21m) have also packed their bags. Alejandro Garnacho, a €46m signing from Manchester United last summer, will spend the season on loan at Aston Villa.
With no European football to juggle, Alonso will shed more of the excess baggage and have a young, talented squad to work with without the demands of midweek football.
The Spaniard favoured a fluid 3-4-3 during his impressive time at Bayer Leverkusen, and while this Chelsea squad have the technical ability to take on his possession-heavy approach, the aggressive counter-pressing from those Bayer days might take some time to bed in, in a squad who have shown no great desire to run.
It’s a highly-promising appointment, but as we all know, it doesn’t take much for things to unravel in West London. While Alsonso has the tools to be a success, it’s not hard to envision the Spaniard being booted out the door before the season ends, and in that scenario, after this latest pivot to a new model, where would Chelsea turn next?
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” Alonso told reporters during his first day of press dealings at Stamford Bridge, a day which naturally invited questions as to why he wasn’t settling into a new office in Liverpool.
It was all “about timings,” Alonso explained.
Maybe, for once, Todd Boehly and Co have landed the right man at just the right time.
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In Xabi Alonso, Chelsea might finally have landed the right man at just the right time
FOR SOME TIME now, the Chelsea job has been one of the more peculiar posts in world football.
Back in the 2000s and 2010s, the job attracted some of the biggest names in the game. José Mourinho (twice), Carlo Ancelotti, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Rafael Benitez (which was doomed from the start), Antonio Conte.
Yet since the end of the Roman Abramovich era, the position has been filled by up-and-comers as much as it has world-beaters. Since Conte departed in a trademark fury in 2018, only Thomas Tuchel (the last truly good fit at Stamford Bridge), and to a lesser extent, Maurico Pochettino, arrived with the kind of CV you’d expect for a Premier League title-contending side.
Maurizio Sarri was a Serie A winner without being one of the most in-demand managers around. Frank Lampard would not have got the job without his ‘Super Frank’ club legend status. Graham Potter was out of his depth, but at least more experienced than Liam Rosenior, while Enzo Maresca’s appointment summed the whole slow decline up, coming from Championship-winners Leicester and doing a decent job while all the while seeing Chelsea as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
So after a season in which the Chelsea machine churned through Maresca, Rosenior and interim Calum McFarlane (twice), anything felt possible as BlueCo dipped back to the management market for the sixth time (including Lampard’s interim spell) since taking control of the club in 2022.
Maybe we should get the Brighton manager in to coach all these ex-Brighton players?
Does anyone here have José’s number?
What’s Avram Grant doing these days?
This Ted Lasso guy seems popular?
In that context the appointment of Xabi Alonso felt surprisingly sensible, and marked the first time in an age Chelsea had signed a manager whose profile appears to fit the demands and scale of the job. The first time in an age Chelsea attracted a manager other major clubs would love to have on board. The first time in an age you actually wonder why a highly-rated manager felt attracted to the Chelsea job.
Firstly, that title feels significant. Alonso is the first Chelsea boss appointed as ‘manager’, rather than ‘head coach’, since the Special One’s second stint started in 2013.
The word was Alonso would have more authority than his recent predecessors, and already, the Spaniard appears to be getting his way through that more hands-on brief, with this summer’s dealings marking a notable shift in the way the club has been culturally structured since the American owners stepped into the ashes of the Abramovich era.
The former Liverpool and Real Madrid midfielder outlined his key objectives as “hard work, building the right culture and winning trophies”. He’ll immediately command respect given his own playing history, and has wasted no time in addressing the fact his squad needed an injection of experience and leadership, badly missing since Thiago Silva left Stamford Bridge two summers ago.
Still, the signings of Jordan Henderson (36) and Danny Welbeck (35) came as bolts out of the blue. It is unclear how much football Henderson will play in Chelsea’s midfield, with the former Liverpool captain’s true value likely to come on the training pitch and in the changing room. Welbeck is a fine striker (13 Premier League goals last season) and continues the Chelsea tradition of plucking players and staff from Brighton – the reported €6m spend on Welbeck is worth it if only to stop his reliable stream of goals against the Blues (six in the last six seasons).
Elsewhere, you don’t need reams of spreadsheets to see where this squad needs to improve. The only charts in which Chelsea featured in the top end last season were not ones any well-functioning football club should be associated with.
Most red cards? Chelsea. Eight in the Premier League alone – twice that of the nearest club – and a staggering 11 in all competitions.
Put some of that indiscipline down to Chelsea having the youngest squad in the league (average age 23.4 years), although that caveat only makes some of their other returns harder to digest. For all that youth and lovely potential sell-on value, Chelsea were outrun by their opponents in all but one of their Premier League games.
Improving the discipline and workrate will go a long way to lifting Chelsea up from their lowly 10th-place finish last season, where the club lost as many games as they won (14).
Another key objective will be to get Cole Palmer back to his best. This work started early, with Palmer available to train right from the beginning of Chelsea’s pre-season. Indeed, most of the group were, with only 12 of Chelsea’s bloated squad called up for World Cup duty – the same return as Crystal Palace and Sunderland. Manchester City, by comparison, had 19.
Palmer didn’t make England manager Thomas Tuchel’s final cut after an underwhelming campaign where the 24-year-old struggled for fitness and consistency. An unfortunate development for the many companies (including Nike and Coca-Cola) who shelled out big bucks to make Palmer the face of their World Cup advertising campaigns. Over 26 Premier League appearances in 2025/26 Palmer delivered just 11 goal involvements (10 goals and one assist). A year previously, where he featured in all but one of Chelsea’s Premier League fixtures, his return was 24 (15 goals, nine assists).
One of the first moves toward addressing this might be to relocate Palmer. His heat-map for last season shows he did most of his work between the middle of the pitch and the right wing. Alonso might encourage Palmer to play more centrally as a number 10, with €138m summer signing Morgan Rogers likely to take the left wing spot while Estêvão and Pedro Neto serve as the leading options on the right.
Whatever the configuration, Chelsea need more regular goal contributors. Alonso will hope to ease the burden on João Pedro (another overlooked for World Cup duty with Brazil), who led the way with 20 goals – Enzo Fernández was second with 15.
Below that, the goals were spread across a cluster of attacking midfield players while striker Liam Delap, a €35million signing from Ipswich, found the net just twice, the same tally as the likes of Josh Acheampong and Tosin Adarabioyo.
Chelsea’s problems in front of goal were encapsulated in the five-game goalless run which led to Rosenior’s early dismissal. Unsurprisingly, Chelsea are expected to trim some of the fat up front, with Nicolas Jackson (who spent last season at Bayern Munich) and Marc Guiu among the other options in one of the more bloated areas of the squad.
Rogers should add to Chelsea’s attacking threat, notching 14 goals and 12 assists across his 55 outings with Aston Villa last season. And it should help that Rogers enjoys a close relationship with Palmer, the pair both coming through Manchester City’s youth system. Indeed, Palmer’s trademark ‘cold’ celebration was first delivered as a response and tribute to his pal, Rogers.
Chelsea have also brought in defender Maxence Lacroix from Crystal Palace for €60m, Italian right-back Marco Palestra for €60m (Atalanta), 19-year-old right-winger Geovany Quenda for €50m (Sporting) and versatile Argentinian midfielder Valentín Barco for €40m (Strasbourg).
It’s a staggering expenditure for a club who have been sanctioned twice by Uefa over the past year for overspending, and just last month were fined £10m (€11.7m) and handed a suspended two-window transfer ban by an independent appeal board after admitting breaches of FA agent rules.
Marc Cucurella, a senior player in a young Chelsea squad, departed for Real Madrid (€55m) while Andrey Santos (Manchester United, €56m), Trevoh Chalobah (Como, €30m), and Tyrique George (Everton, €21m) have also packed their bags. Alejandro Garnacho, a €46m signing from Manchester United last summer, will spend the season on loan at Aston Villa.
With no European football to juggle, Alonso will shed more of the excess baggage and have a young, talented squad to work with without the demands of midweek football.
The Spaniard favoured a fluid 3-4-3 during his impressive time at Bayer Leverkusen, and while this Chelsea squad have the technical ability to take on his possession-heavy approach, the aggressive counter-pressing from those Bayer days might take some time to bed in, in a squad who have shown no great desire to run.
It’s a highly-promising appointment, but as we all know, it doesn’t take much for things to unravel in West London. While Alsonso has the tools to be a success, it’s not hard to envision the Spaniard being booted out the door before the season ends, and in that scenario, after this latest pivot to a new model, where would Chelsea turn next?
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” Alonso told reporters during his first day of press dealings at Stamford Bridge, a day which naturally invited questions as to why he wasn’t settling into a new office in Liverpool.
It was all “about timings,” Alonso explained.
Maybe, for once, Todd Boehly and Co have landed the right man at just the right time.
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Soccer Chelsea timings Xabi Alonso