Since January 2021, Lampard, Tuchel, Potter, Pochettino, Maresca and most recently Liam Rosenior have been “tipped out” from Stamford Bridge. The latter signed a six-year contract earlier this year, 106 days later the England coach was in the job search queue. Now three candidates are being put forward to lead the Chelsea ship from next season, the warning lights should be flashing for Xabi Alonso.
Calum McFarlane is the interim manager of Chelsea for the rest of the season, where it is expected that the Chelsea management will spend their time finding the right coach. According to Sky Sports , the list of candidates consists of three particularly strong candidates: Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva and Xabi Alonso.
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Iraola has had standing success in the Premier League with Bournemouth, and is fighting (against Chelsea, among others) this season for a Europa League ticket. After the end of the season, the Spaniard is without a contract and is thus available on the market.
Iraola will leave Bournemouth this summer, while Marco Silva’s contract with Fulham is also about to expire. Xabi Alonso has, since “agreement with Real Madrid” to end his employment relationship in January, been vacant on the market. The latter has been linked to the Liverpool job for several months, but strong signals have come in recent weeks that Arne Slot will keep the job.
Xabi Alonso went from his job as coach of Real Sociedad’s second team to lead Bayer Levverkusen to a historic Bundesliga title. Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Real Madrid all wanted to sign their club legend, Alonso stayed at Leverkusen and continued his strong performances. Then the timing was right to accept Real Madrid last summer. Here it was a kick-start with the Club World Cup, but it became clear early on that Xabi Alonso faced a completely different situation internally than at Leverkusen. In Germany, it was Alonso who ran the show, in Madrid it was a bunch of superstars (and egos), who did not hold back their dissatisfaction with being dictated or losing playing time. Alonso realized he could not accomplish what he came for, and together with the club management agreed that it would last after seven months.
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If Xabi Alonso takes the job at Stamford Bridge, it could be a repetition of “powerlessness” as a coach. We love Chelsea as a club, but what the owners and management have shown when it comes to choosing and treating coaches, we recommend Xabi Alonso to think extra carefully if he is offered to replace the coach who lasted for 106 days.
