Xabi Alonso has framed his decision to take charge of Chelsea ahead of the 2026\/27 season as a matter of opportunity and timing. \u201cWell, it is about timings,\u201d he told BBC Sport. The 44-year-old signed a four-year deal at Stamford Bridge while Arne Slot remained in charge at Liverpool.<\/p>\n
At the time Chelsea secured Alonso, Liverpool appeared to be sticking with Slot despite what the club considered a horrid sophomore stint in the dugout, leaving Chelsea with no immediate competition for his signature. Weeks after Alonso\u2019s arrival, Liverpool sacked Slot and appointed Andoni Iraola.<\/p>\n
Alonso turned his attention to the work awaiting him at Chelsea following a disappointing 2025\u201326 campaign. The club went from winning the Club World Cup last summer to finishing 10th in the Premier League and failing to qualify for European competition. Chelsea\u2019s season ended with a 1\u20130 defeat to Manchester City in the FA Cup final under interim boss Calum McFarlane, who had taken over after Rosenior lost his job at the end of April. The former Strasburg manager lasted less than four months in charge after signing a six-and-a-half-year contract in January. Before Rosenior, Enzo Maresca saw his tenure implode after a falling out with the club\u2019s hierarchy.<\/p>\n
Alonso becomes the sixth permanent manager in four years under BlueCo. He expressed confidence in working with the club\u2019s decision makers and in the squad\u2019s potential. \u201cI am looking forward to this challenge, a big challenge, and Chelsea is one of the biggest clubs and I am looking forward to having success here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I like is that we work together and we are all part of the decisions we take, we all feel responsible for that,\u201d Alonso said. \u201cWe are confident that we are doing the right things in the right way. The potential is there. I think there is a strong base and a good team already there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to reinforce it in the right way and take good decisions to do that. The feeling is that we are aligned with the sporting directors. The ultimate goal is to have a good team, build the right squad and we are in that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Cole Palmer, Alonso added: \u201cSo far we have been together for a few days and he has come in with a positive mindset and positive spirit. He wants to enjoy playing football.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alonso says timing decided his Chelsea move; he plans a rebuild, wants the best from Cole Palmer. Too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1505,1615,299],"class_list":["post-17319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-andoni-iraola","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319","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=17319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}