Chelsea have announced the appointment of Xabi Alonso as their new manager, making him their sixth permanent manager since the time of Behada Egbali and Todd Boley at Stamford Bridge.
Xabi Alonso appointed as Chelsea’s new manager (Image: Marco Steinbrenner/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)
After a period of reflection, he made a major change in direction. Chelsea issued a statement last month following the sacking of manager Liam Rosenior, promising to bring “stability” and a “suitable long-term appointment”.
To be fair, Xabi Alonso’s words are a much bigger statement than anything Chelsea could say to fed-up fans. Former Liverpool midfielder Alonso was a huge coup as he had a great time at Bayer Leverkusen.
It didn’t work out for him at Real Madrid, but bringing in such a great player shows that Chelsea are at it again. Chelsea believe Alonso is a proven winner who can help him return to England’s top flight and re-establish them as a European powerhouse.
Alonso has given Chelsea a sense of his standards, his vision for long-term success and his desire to completely reset the culture after a season that fell well below the standards accepted by the leaders. Former Spain international Alonso knows English football from his time winning the Bundesliga with Leverkusen and enjoying success with Liverpool.
World Cup Legends: The stars of soccer’s biggest tournament in history – buy the special edition now
read more: Antoine Semenyo returns to Chelsea and helps Man City win the FA Cup – 5 talking pointsread more: Furious Chelsea fans protest to owners just before FA Cup final at Wembley
Alonso has already proven himself to be a smart tactician who connects with the players and is open to working with the sporting director at a club with a modern structure. Paul Winstanley and Lawrence Stewart lead Chelsea’s team of five sporting directors.
It’s also about learning from your mistakes. Incredibly, Alonso becomes the club’s sixth permanent manager, joining Behada Egbali and Todd Boley. Alonso follows in the footsteps of Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Enzo Maresca and Rosenior.
England manager Tuchel, who was already in charge when Egbali and Behli bought the club, is perhaps the biggest name among the managers alongside Pochettino. But clearly, Chelsea had decided to go in a different direction after Pochettino. Because when Maresca left Leicester to take up the role at Stamford Bridge, it wasn’t exactly a great appointment.
Can Xabi Alonso succeed at Chelsea? Let us know your predictions in the comments section.
Xabi Alonso won two trophies in his first season at Bayer Leverkusen (Image: Mika Volkmann/Getty Images)
Maresca did a good job overall, leading the club to the Champions League and winning European trophies and the Club World Cup, but he was hired to work with Chelsea’s young players. Rosenior was transferred to another BlueCo club, opposite Strasbourg, as if moving from a supermarket branch in Staines to the London headquarters.
Rather than signing big-name players to win trophies like the ones he collected as a hobby under former owner Roman Abramovich, Chelsea’s leaders wanted managers they could control to oversee “projects” to buy and sell young players. Even caretaker manager Callum McFarlane, brought in for the remainder of the season, wears an unflattering pale green jersey and looks as if he should be running a branch of Fitness First rather than Chelsea Football Club.
Chelsea fans are fed up. No wonder. When you’re spoiled with Premier League titles and European Cups, you get frustrated when they dry up. Chelsea face the realistic prospect of being eliminated from Europe next season after losing to Manchester City in the FA Cup final. That’s unthinkable for a team that was keen to boast that they were world champions.
See how the mighty have fallen. No wonder fans from protest group Not a Project CFC marched down Wembley Way before Saturday’s match. they are not happy.
Behdad Egbali and Todd Boley have appointed five different managers at Chelsea (Image: Robin Jones/Getty Images)
It’s not just Egbali and Boley, but also the club’s army of sporting directors, who seem to be signing endless amounts of players they’ve never heard of. They spent a lot of money last summer too, but João Pedro is the only one who actually looks half decent. Long-term contracts, low base pay, and a broken system. Something had to give.
That’s why Alonso clearly admitted to the owners that it wasn’t working and they had to change. Alonso will be inheriting a talented squad including Cole Palmer, Reece James, Enzo Fernandes and Moises Caicedo, all of whom are top players but accept they need to improve and bring proven quality to the table if they are to get back to challenging for the biggest trophies.
Alonso is also very intelligent and the fact that Chelsea persuaded him to join them, knowing that a big job was likely to come his way this summer, shows that he buys into their vision for success.
Join our new WhatsApp community and receive Mirror Football content every day. Community members also receive special offers, promotions, and advertisements from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check it out whenever you like. If you are interested, please read our privacy notice.
Sky Sports, HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+ and Ultimate TV packages
Sky has upgraded its Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundles to include HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu, plus 135 channels and complete coverage of the Premier League and EFL from Sky.
Sky has over 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more, with at least 215 of them live from the top flight, along with F1, darts and golf.
