Chelsea are reportedly set to appoint Xabi Alonso on a four-year contract following their FA Cup final defeat. According to reports, the Spaniard has “accepted the opportunity” and an announcement is said to be imminent after Alonso visited London last week to advance contract talks.<\/p>\n
Alonso, who was sacked by Real Madrid in early January, emerged as a frontrunner for the vacancy, apparently edging out Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola. The Athletic say Alonso “wanted” the move back to the Premier League, where he spent five years playing for Liverpool.<\/p>\n
The task awaiting Alonso at Stamford Bridge will contrast sharply with his previous roles. At Bayer Leverkusen he inherited a side in the relegation zone and, against expectations, guided them to an unbeaten Bundesliga title. At Real Madrid the demands were of a different order: he faced pressure to deliver major silverware immediately and was dismissed after failing to get the best from a squad described as full of world class talent.<\/p>\n
Chelsea present a blend of those two challenges. The club have won just one of their last 11 league matches and sit ninth in the table, well outside the Champions League positions and at risk of missing out on European competition entirely. That record sits uneasily alongside the club’s recent Club World Cup triumph and a strong start to the Premier League season.<\/p>\n
Alonso will not have the type of single superstar often relied upon at the very highest level. Instead he takes charge of a squad with several underperforming and relatively unproven players he must shape into a coherent team. His reputation for developing young talent is well noted; Florian Wirtz and Arda G\u00fcler are cited as players who benefited from his coaching. Chelsea’s lack of clear identity on the pitch means his tactical approach and experience with youth development could be particularly useful if the reports are accurate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xabi Alonso has “accepted the opportunity” to take charge of Chelsea on a reported four-year deal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1505,1081,1615],"class_list":["post-13853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-adaptation","tag-andoni-iraola"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853","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=13853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}