Chelsea\u2019s early-season defensive troubles have placed Xabi Alonso in notable but unwelcome territory after the Brentford defeat.<\/p>\n
The Chelsea manager has become only the sixth boss in Premier League history to see his team concede at least twice in each of their first five matches. Across those five league games, Chelsea have already shipped 12 goals, the worst defensive return in the division going into Saturday\u2019s fixtures.<\/p>\n
That puts Alonso alongside a short list of managers whose sides struggled badly from the outset. The figures show just how steep the problem has been:<\/p>\n
Terry Connor conceded 16 goals, Sammy Lee and Scott Parker both conceded 13, Alonso and Slavi\u0161a Jokanovi\u0107 each conceded 12, and Mick McCarthy conceded 10.<\/p>\n
There are, however, clear reasons why Chelsea have been so exposed. Alonso has been operating without Mois\u00e9s Caicedo and Marco Palestra through injury, while captain Reece James was also unavailable against Brentford. Those absences have weakened the structure, although they cannot fully explain everything on their own.<\/p>\n
One recurring issue has been defending set pieces. Jaidon Anthony\u2019s opener on Friday marked the sixth time Chelsea have conceded from a dead-ball situation this season, which is already the highest such total in the league. Austin MacPhee was brought in during the summer as set-piece coach, but recent episodes suggest the work is still far from settled.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s switch to a back three has also not provided the expected protection. Rather than tightening things up, it has looked awkward and has left space for opponents to exploit.<\/p>\n
The wider picture matters too. Since the start of 2026, no Premier League team has conceded more than Chelsea\u2019s 43 goals. Alonso\u2019s 12 in five games sit on top of a problem that predates him, with Liam Rosenior and Calum McFarlane having already overseen 31 goals conceded in 19 matches before his arrival.<\/p>\n
Maxence Lacroix has arrived from Crystal Palace to strengthen the defence, but there is still a sense that Chelsea need more experience at the back to steady the unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea’s early defensive record under Xabi Alonso has joined an unwanted Premier League list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,2035],"tags":[1836,1162,242],"class_list":["post-19830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-chelsea-news","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830","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=19830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}