Calum McFarlane insists it should not be a surprise that Chelsea have attracted Xabi Alonso.<\/strong><\/p>\n The former Liverpool manager will take over as manager at Stamford Bridge<\/strong> <\/span>in July.<\/p>\n Alonso left Real Madrid in January after less than eight months in charge at the Bernabeu.<\/p>\n Prior to his spell in Spain, he enjoyed a stunning stint in Germany, leading Leverkusen to their first-ever Bundesliga title \u2014 secured without losing a single game\u2014as well as the German Cup during the 2023-24 campaign.<\/p>\n He was linked with his former club Liverpool and regarded as one of the most sought-after managers in the game.<\/p>\n And Chelsea<\/strong><\/span> have attracted him despite a disappointing, trophyless season and the prospect of no European football next term.<\/p>\n But McFarlane said: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t surprise me. It\u2019s a massive club.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve got really exciting players \u2013 some of the best players in the world who have shown at times this year, even though it\u2019s been a disappointing season, the quality that we have.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a massive club and it will always attract top players and top managers.\u201d<\/p>\n McFarlane has been at the helm since the sacking of Liam Rosenior \u2013 his second spell as interim head coach.<\/p>\n McFarlane revealed that he has had contact with Alonso via text message,\u00a0 but says he does not yet know whether he will be part of the Spaniard\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know at this moment in time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n However, it is understood that McFarlane will be retained along with goalkeeper coach Ben Roberts and set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva.<\/p>\n Get the latest direct to your phone \u2013 follow West London Sport\u2019s WhatsApp channel<\/strong><\/p>\n Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Calum McFarlane insists it should not be a surprise that Chelsea have attracted Xabi Alonso….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10672","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\/10672","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=10672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"WhatsApp\"\/](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/6\/6b\/WhatsApp.svg\")
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