Three injury boosts on day one

Xabi Alonso at Chelsea: Three injury boosts lift the mood on day one at Cobham

Xabi Alonso at Chelsea: Thursday brought a proper lift to Stamford Bridge’s summer. Eighteen players filed through the gates at Cobham for the first official day of pre-season under Xabi Alonso at Chelsea. The mood, by all accounts, was good. Genuinely good. A baking Surrey heatwave did absolutely nothing to dampen the enthusiasm.

According to The Standard, Alonso took his maiden session on the grass at Chelsea’s Surrey base. He put his squad through a mixture of hard running and sharp ball work. The 44-year-old had already visited Cobham last month to meet key staff, including the medical department, but Thursday marked the moment he formally settled into his new office at the training ground. Players were asked to arrive at around 9 am for an extended reintroduction ahead of the 2026-27 campaign.

Injury fears put to bed

The most significant development had nothing to do with transfers or tactics. Three players who finished last season in the treatment room, Estevao, Jamie Gittens and Romeo Lavia, all took part. That alone will reassure large sections of a fanbase that has watched this group deal with an almost relentless injury toll.

Estevao, 19, managed just 22 Premier League appearances last season. A pesky hamstring problem cut his campaign short in its latter stages, leaving him with just two goals and two assists across 848 minutes. The Brazilian winger, valued at around €97 million by Transfermarkt, looks to have come through that setback. Gittens, meanwhile, was largely confined to a substitute’s role in 2025/26, accumulating just 490 Premier League minutes across 16 appearances and recording two assists before picking up his own hamstring complaint in training.

Lavia’s contribution was similarly disrupted. The Belgian midfielder clocked only 377 Premier League minutes, rating a modest 6.41 on average across his outings. His presence on the grass at Cobham on Thursday will mean a great deal more to the coaching staff than any summer signing announcement.

Two summer recruits got their bearings. Emmanuel Emegha, the former Strasbourg striker, and winger Geovany Quenda—who arrived from Sporting CP—both trained alongside the returning players. Kazakh wonderkid Dastan Satpaev, 17, was also present. He was given special permission by his club FC Kairat to begin training early ahead of his move officially going through when he turns 18 in August.

Academy hopefuls Reggie Walsh, Ryan Kavuma-McQueen and Landon Emenalo were also put through their paces, clearly angling for a first-team opportunity under fresh management. Filip Jorgensen’s appearance came as a surprise, given he submitted a transfer request back in May, but the Danish goalkeeper trained regardless.

Several notable absences, naturally. Marco Palestra didn’t report, despite signing with the club just a week prior. Alejandro Garnacho wasn’t there. Andrey Santos was absent too, and The Standard understands a move to Manchester United for the Brazilian midfielder is edging closer. Mykhailo Mudryk remains suspended following his ongoing doping case. Players still representing their nations at the World Cup, Moises Caicedo, Pedro Neto, Jorrel Hato and Nicolas Jackson, among them, were obviously excused. Marc Guiu, meanwhile, posted on Instagram content of himself working with a personal trainer in Spain.

Cole Palmer, Wesley Fofana and Joao Pedro, all uninvolved in the tournament, did report as expected. Chelsea’s first match of pre-season under Alonso comes against Western Sydney Wanderers in Australia on 28 July, with the Blues opening their Premier League season away at Fulham on 24 August.

Read: Chelsea have bypassed the usual back-channel tapping-up and lodged a formal €80 million bid

Xabi Alonso at Chelsea has started. The players have come back fit. For a club whose injury list read like a squad sheet most of last winter, that is the only result that mattered on day one.