\n<\/p>\n
Xabi Alonso is set to take over at Stamford Bridge from interim boss Calum McFarlane but has already been dealt a blow, with many of his players likely to be looking elsewhere. The BlueCo-created bloated squad will be trimmed substantially in the next few months and some big names may depart in search of European football.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He has been linked with a move back to Manchester in recent months, having left City three years ago to spearhead Chelsea\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
And the 24-year-old has already admitted that not qualifying for the Champions League means that \u201ceverything changes\u201d at the club.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Last month, he told TNT Sports: “I believe in what the club are doing. Hopefully, I and we (Chelsea) can win a lot. If we’re not in the Champions League, a lot changes. Everything changes, really.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Now that Chelsea did not qualify for any European competition, let alone the Champions League, we will soon find out exactly what Palmer meant by his cryptic comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
There had been some questions over Palmer\u2019s future at that time, but he did move to denounce the prospect of leaving Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
He directly addressed the idea of returning back to Manchester, with United, in an interview with the Guardian last month. Palmer said: \u201cEveryone just talks. When I see it I just laugh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cObviously Manchester is my home. All my family are there, but I don\u2019t miss it. Maybe I\u2019ll miss it if I don\u2019t go for three months or something. But then when I get home I think there\u2019s nothing there for me anyway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got no plans to move from Chelsea. We\u2019ve still got a lot to play for. We\u2019ve got the FA Cup semi-final (against Leeds) and if we finish in a Champions League spot it puts us in a good position to sign players that we need. We spoke to the owners and they\u2019re sure of the players that are gonna do it. Reece (James) won\u2019t sign a six-year contract if he\u2019s not spoken to the owners and the directors.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cMe and Reece spoke a lot. About things we need, players we need to sign and how things need to be. He wouldn\u2019t sign a new contract if he didn\u2019t know what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Palmer\u2019s current contract at Chelsea runs until 2033.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Xabi Alonso is set to take over at Stamford Bridge from interim boss Calum McFarlane…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12584","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\/12584","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=12584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}