{"id":10655,"date":"2026-05-19T14:12:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10655"},"modified":"2026-05-19T14:12:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:12:22","slug":"mcfarlane-says-alonso-appointment-exciting-for-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=10655","title":{"rendered":"McFarlane says Alonso appointment exciting for Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_65\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Calum McFarlane has said everyone at Chelsea is excited by the arrival of Xabi Alonso as manager.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Alonso\u2019s appointment was confirmed this week with the Spaniard set to take charge in the summer.<\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old arrives with a fine reputation, having masterminded Bayer Leverkusen\u2019s Bundesliga title win in 2023\/24. Leverkusen had never previously won the Bundesliga and achieved the feat without losing a game.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of facing Tottenham Hotspur tomorrow, McFarlane said the imminent arrival of Alonso has created excitement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, I think everyone at the club is excited. Like I said, a great coach, had a really good career so far, won major trophies, great playing career, will have a lot of respect from everyone and it\u2019s a really exciting appointment from the club.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McFarlane is set to stay on as part of Alonso\u2019s backroom staff at Chelsea. The interim coach has said he has \u2018enjoyed the challenge\u2019 of taking the senior role, but is hopeful he can conclude his reign with victories.<\/p>\n<p>A win for Chelsea would move the Blues into eighth, a position that will secure European football for next season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed the challenge. I\u2019ve enjoyed the pressure. It\u2019s easier when you win games rather than losing games, but yeah, I\u2019ve enjoyed it and we\u2019re ready for the game tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Alonso eyes \u00a380m midfielder as first Chelsea signing<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See more \u2013\u00a0Chelsea name Xabi Alonso as head coach on four-year deal<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook | Instagram | <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Calum McFarlane has said everyone at Chelsea is excited by the arrival of Xabi Alonso&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10655","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\/10655","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=10655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}