Chelsea are reportedly closing in on the appointment of Austin MacPhee, who is expected to join Xabi Alonso\u2019s coaching setup before the 2026-27 season begins.<\/p>\n
MacPhee is set to leave Aston Villa after five seasons and step into the set-piece coach role at Chelsea, taking over from Bernardo Cueva. Cueva will remain part of Alonso\u2019s staff, although in a behind-the-scenes capacity.<\/p>\n
The move highlights how far the game has shifted. Set-piece coaching is no longer a detail tucked away on a staff chart. In modern soccer, dead-ball situations now carry major weight, with some teams placing them alongside, or even above, open-play structure as a route to goals.<\/p>\n
What once passed almost unnoticed is now treated as a core part of club planning. Specialists in this area can shape results, and Chelsea appear to have targeted one of the most respected names in that field.<\/p>\n
MacPhee\u2019s work at Aston Villa made the club one of the most dangerous set-piece sides in Europe. His methods were described as innovative, creative and lethal, giving Unai Emery\u2019s attack an added threat from dead-ball situations.<\/p>\n
The numbers support that reputation. Villa scored 29 set-piece goals last season, the joint-most in Europe\u2019s top-five leagues alongside Arsenal. Chelsea, by comparison, scored 21.<\/p>\n
In a sport where efficiency from set pieces can be decisive, Chelsea are strengthening a department that has become increasingly important across the game.<\/p>\n
If MacPhee does arrive, it will be the third separate piece of business between Chelsea and Aston Villa during the summer transfer window. Earlier in the month, Chelsea made attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers the most expensive British player in history, paying a club-record $157.3 million (\u00a3117 million) to sign the England international from Villa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea are close to appointing Austin MacPhee, a move that strengthens their set-piece department ahead of 2026-27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,190],"tags":[1836,1859],"class_list":["post-18043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-chelsea","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-austin-macphee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043","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=18043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}