Marc Cucurella has confirmed he has already spoken with incoming Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso and described the conversation as confidence building. The defender, who has been linked with both Barcelona and Atl\u00e9tico Madrid and has expressed interest in returning to Spain, nevertheless suggested Alonso\u2019s message left a clear opening for continued life at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Asked by MARCA for his feelings towards Alonso\u2019s project, Cucurella revealed: \u201cI\u2019ve spoken with him and he inspired a lot of confidence in me. I\u2019ve also spoken with [Alejandro] Grimaldo and Borja [Iglesias], who have worked with him, and they spoke very highly of him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe project seems very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cucurella has regularly been central to whichever tactical plan his Chelsea managers have chosen. Under Maresca he often operated as an inverted attacking midfielder, encouraged to get involved in central attacks while still expected to defend his left wing. That hybrid usage has been a defining feature of his time at the club.<\/p>\n
How Alonso uses Cucurella will depend on the formation he selects. Alonso\u2019s 3-4-3 at Bayer Leverkusen turned Grimaldo, Cucurella\u2019s Spain teammate, into one of the deadliest wing backs in Europe, a season that produced 12 goals and 20 assists in 2023\u201324. By contrast, Alonso\u2019s spells at Real Madrid tended to favour 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 systems, both of which call for a more traditional left back.<\/p>\n
Cucurella\u2019s ability to perform as both an advanced inverted midfielder and as a traditional left back gives him flexibility that could suit multiple Alonso systems. That tactical versatility, combined with the positive endorsement from figures who have worked with Alonso, frames the defender\u2019s situation: interest from Spain remains, but a convincing conversation with the new Chelsea coach has left the option of staying at the club very much alive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cucurella says Alonso “inspired a lot of confidence” and leaves future at Chelsea open. Transfer nod<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1081,1162,1637],"class_list":["post-14285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics","tag-assists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14285","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=14285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}