Updated 15:55, 18 May 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/span><\/div>\n
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\nXabi Alonso is the new Chelsea manager(Image: Jose Breton\/NurPhoto)<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/button><\/p>\n
Chelsea interim head coach Calum McFarlane will be part of Xabi Alonso’s backroom staff at Stamford Bridge, sources say, though his role is yet to be confirmed.<\/p>\n
Alonso will officially begin his role as Blues manager on July 1 after it was announced on Sunday morning that the Spaniard had signed a four-year contract in west London. The 44-year-old will become BlueCo’s sixth permanent manager\/head coach since they bought the club almost four years ago, with this appointment feeling like a hugely significant one in the ownership’s Stamford Bridge tenure.<\/p>\n
Chelsea have given Alonso the ‘manager’ title to give the Spaniard more power in operations within the club, sources have told football.london<\/strong> . Even though Alonso does not officially start work until July, he has already chosen his backroom staff.<\/p>\nFOLLOW OUR CHELSEA FB PAGE!<\/strong> Latest Blues news, analysis and much more via our dedicated Facebook page<\/strong><\/p>\nMcFarlane, who is in his second spell as interim head coach in a singular season, will continue working with the Chelsea first team. BlueCo believe McFarlane is an excellent young coach who will continue to progress, helped by working under Alonso.<\/p>\n
Ben Roberts, Chelsea’s goalkeeping coach, will continue in his role at Stamford Bridge. Bernardo Cueva, the club’s set-piece coach, will also be part of Alonso’s staff. Elsewhere, the former Real Madrid boss will bring four men with him from his short spell at the Santiago Bernabeu.<\/p>\n
Alonso’s long-time assistant coach Sebastian Parrilla will move to west London with the Spaniard. Parrilla has worked with Alonso for around eight years now – since the beginning of the new Chelsea manager’s coaching journey in Real Madrid’s academy. Parrilla then followed Alonso to Real Sociedad’s B team, Bayer Leverkusen and then Real Madrid.<\/p>\n
Fellow assistants Alberto Encinas and Benat Labaien will also join Alonso at Chelsea, sources say. Fitness coach Ismael Camenforte Lopez will also help out Alonso in London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xabi Alonso will officially begin his role as Chelsea manager on July 1 with the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}