Chelsea are once again searching for a permanent manager after a turbulent spell that followed the brief Liam Rosenior experiment. Rosenior arrived from Strasbourg under the BlueCo umbrella, but a perceived lack of elite experience and an inability to galvanise the dressing room left the appointment looking like a gamble that failed. The club also lost Enzo Maresca at the start of January after the Italian openly clashed with senior management.<\/p>\n
The Athletic has reported Chelsea are \u201cexploring a deal\u201d for Xabi Alonso, who is currently out of work after his stint at Real Madrid. No final decision has been taken and the soccer department\u2019s five-person leadership team will review options before recommending a candidate to the owners. The Spaniard is described as \u201copen\u201d to discussing the role.<\/p>\n
Alonso arrives with strong recent credentials from Bayer Leverkusen, where he delivered the club\u2019s first national championship and an undefeated domestic double. That record helped him emerge as a clear choice at the Bernab\u00e9u last summer because of his history as a player there and his coaching results in Germany. The criticism of his Real Madrid tenure centred on the mismatch between club and coach \u2014 Real needed a \u2018manager\u2019 to unite a squad of global stars, while Alonso is seen more as a \u2018coach\u2019 who focuses on tactical detail, and was said to have been trying to coach players who didn\u2019t want to be. The fallout at Madrid has been amplified by reports of a rotten culture and infighting.<\/p>\n
Many of Alonso\u2019s strengths match Chelsea\u2019s present needs. He has a reputation for improving young players: Florian Wirtz flourished under him, while Jeremie Frimpong, Piero Hincapi\u00e9, Victor Boniface, Odilon Kossounou and Josip Stani\u0161i\u0107 were cited as beneficiaries, and veterans such as Granit Xhaka and Robert Andrich also elevated their performances. Chelsea\u2019s squad of developing talents could suit a coach with that profile. His 3-4-3 or 3-4-2-1 ideas from Germany would exploit Chelsea\u2019s centre-back depth and attacking fullbacks, with inside forwards like Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto and Alejandro Garnacho fitting the system. Alonso also brings Premier League experience as a former Liverpool player and a record of major honours at club and international level.<\/p>\n
Other names linked to the vacancy include Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva, Oliver Glasner and Filipe Lu\u00eds. Each has differing profiles: Iraola has built success at smaller clubs, Silva has long experience in England with mixed trophy returns, and Glasner has won domestic cups but reportedly has grievances with his current hierarchy. The club\u2019s decision will rest with the leadership team and the owners once a recommendation is submitted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xabi Alonso is \u201copen\u201d to discussions as Chelsea weigh successors after managerial turbulence. Brief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13758,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[227,1162,1615],"class_list":["post-13759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-alejandro-garnacho","tag-analytics","tag-andoni-iraola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}