{"id":12607,"date":"2026-05-26T11:01:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=12607"},"modified":"2026-05-26T11:01:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T11:01:13","slug":"gusto-garnacho-delap-as-light-years-from-chelsea-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=12607","title":{"rendered":"Gusto, Garnacho, Delap as &#8220;light years&#8221; from Chelsea level"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p><b><i>Even media outlets in other countries are now picking up on how much trouble Chelsea are in this summer, with so many players linked away.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><em>If you enjoy Chelsea News coverage and want to see more of it, add us as a preferred source on Google to make us a favourite and see more of our content.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Pablo Montano, the London football correspondent at Spanish paper AS has been writing about Chelsea and the mess that his countryman Xabi Alonso is going to walk into when he takes over this summer.<\/p>\n<p>They note that with Enzo Fernandez making eyes at Real Madrid, Joao Pedro heavily linked to Barcelona, and likes of Marc Cucurella and Cole Palmer linked with moves away, the risk of a \u201cstampede\u201d is real.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea at major risk with top stars pushing to leave and replacements not up to scratch<\/h2>\n<p>If those players do leave, there\u2019s not much confidence in their potential replacements either:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe likes of Liam Delap, Alejandro Garnacho and Malo Gusto have shown that they are light year from the level Chelsea require, and none of them were cheap,\u201d the damning piece continues.<\/p>\n<p>So there are players who want to leave, and players we need to sell \u2013 it could be some summer of transfer action after all.<\/p>\n<h2>In other news\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>Arsenal have been linked with interest in Enzo Fernandez, a move Chelsea would obviously rather avoid, and one that would make the Gunners stronger.<\/p>\n<p>There could be a major turnaround under Xabi Alonso next season, or at least that\u2019s what one Premier League CEO is saying after seeing how things have shaken out at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL CHELSEA NEWS APP FOR ALL THE LATEST UPDATES \u2013 STRAIGHT TO YOUR PHONE! ON THE APP STORE<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Check out the latest edition of Simon Phillips\u2019 SPTC podcast here:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"SPTC Podcast! Fresh Xabi Alonso to Chelsea news! Summer Transfer Plans! FA Cup Final Preview!\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yiYy60DQcxI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<section class=\"more-stories std-mgn-b\">&#13;<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<header class=\"col-s-12 std-mgn-t\">More Stories about <span class=\"topic\">Xabi Alonso<\/span><\/header>\n<div class=\"post-container col-s-4\">\n<p>\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<div class=\"img-cntr\"><picture><source type=\"image\/webp\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Working-copy-of-CNFeaturedHero-Image-Templates-77-190x107.jpg.webp 190w,https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Working-copy-of-CNFeaturedHero-Image-Templates-77-245x138.jpg.webp 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srcset=\"https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jason-Cundy-speaks-passionately-on-TalkSport.-190x107.jpg 190w,https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jason-Cundy-speaks-passionately-on-TalkSport.-245x138.jpg 245w,https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jason-Cundy-speaks-passionately-on-TalkSport.-320x180.jpg 320w,https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jason-Cundy-speaks-passionately-on-TalkSport.-414x233.jpg 414w,https:\/\/icdn.chelsea.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Jason-Cundy-speaks-passionately-on-TalkSport.-630x354.jpg 630w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width:1230px) 250px, (min-width:1020px) 20vw, (min-width:920px) 290px, (min-width:680px) 30vw, (min-width:394px) 130px, 33vw\"\/><\/source><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"post-container col-s-4\">\n<p>\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<div class=\"img-cntr\"><picture><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/chelsea.news\/wp-content\/themes\/fanatix-3\/fanatix\/static\/source\/img\/featured-image-missing.png\" class=\"lazyload wp-image- lazyload\"\/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- Article End -->\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even media outlets in other countries are now picking up on how much trouble Chelsea&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12607","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\/12607","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=12607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}