Chelsea\u2019s opening spell under Xabi Alonso has already prompted scrutiny, largely because the side have made games far more open than they would like. After six matches, they have conceded 12 goals, a tally better only than Crystal Palace, Coventry City and Ipswich Town in the Premier League. The figures point to a team producing excitement, but also one that is leaving too much behind the ball.<\/p>\n
That is not unfamiliar territory for Alonso. When he arrived at Bayer Leverkusen on Oct. 5, 2022, the club were second-bottom in the Bundesliga and had made their worst start to a season in more than 40 years. His first game brought an immediate lift, a 4-0 win over Schalke, but the weeks that followed were far less comfortable. Defeats to Porto, Eintracht Frankfurt and RB Leipzig, plus draws with Wolfsburg and Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, meant six games had produced 14 goals conceded.<\/p>\n
The criticism was blunt at the time. Simon Rolfes said, \u201cWe\u2019re conceding too many goals,\u201d while Alonso\u2019s response was equally direct: \u201cToo many,\u201d was the manager\u2019s blunt admission.<\/p>\n
He did not abandon his ideas. Alonso shifted Leverkusen from a four-man defence to a 3-4-2-1, kept faith with the structure and argued that understanding would come with time. \u201cWe need to better control when and how we reach the ball,\u201d he said, stressing the need for smarter risks and clearer positioning between teammates.<\/p>\n
That patience eventually paid off. His seventh match ended in a 5-0 win over Union Berlin, the start of a five-game winning run that reset the mood and laid the groundwork for the Bundesliga title 18 months later.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s own numbers show a similar balance of threat and fragility. They have scored 18 goals in Alonso\u2019s first six games, compared with Leverkusen\u2019s nine in the same span. Yet the concern remains the same: a side that attacks well, but has not looked solid enough.<\/p>\n
After the 2-2 draw with Hull City, Alonso again pointed to the need to cut out a \u201csoft\u201d streak. He kept the message measured when speaking to club media: \u201cIt\u2019s early days for us,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s one month together and in one month, we know the idea, the concepts, the mentality, but it\u2019s too early to know it\u2019s already built.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will take longer, but we need to learn from everything and from this [against Hull] as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure, I think it will come. At the moment, we are not having that feeling we are solid enough. With work and with games, I think it will get better.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, I think we are attacking better than we are defending. In every aspect, so we know that it\u2019s a big topic and a theme for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea\u2019s defensive issues under Alonso echo the early Leverkusen struggles that later turned around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,190],"tags":[1162,59,180],"class_list":["post-19409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-chelsea","tag-analytics","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19409","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=19409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}