{"id":15513,"date":"2026-07-08T19:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=15513"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:26:08","slug":"i-decided-top-chelsea-target-confirms-where-he-will-be-playing-his-football-next-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=15513","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I Decided&#8221; &#8211; Top Chelsea Target Confirms Where He Will Be Playing His Football Next Season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p><em>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunderland captain Granit Xhaka has officially closed the door on a move to Chelsea.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Blues had an \u00a38m bid rejected for the Swiss international last month, but speaking after his country secured their place in the World Cup quarter-finals on Tuesday, Xhaka reaffirmed his commitment to his current team:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSunderland has been my home since day one. We are all very happy. I decided to stay where I am; family is the most important thing. I am ready to make history with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>New Chelsea boss Xabi Alonso was keen on being reunited with the player he managed for two seasons at Bayer Leverkusen, but this public statement all but rules out a transfer to Stamford Bridge happening this summer.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sra_unit\"><link rel=\"stylesheet\" id=\"block-sra\" href=\"https:\/\/chelseanews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/snack-related-articles\/dist\/css\/snack-related.min.css?230424-120159\" type=\"text\/css\" media=\"all\"\/>\n<aside class=\"sra-group sra-related-list\">\n<h2 class=\"sra-group-head\">Most Read on Chelsea News<\/h2>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<h2>It\u2019s a blow for Alonso<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" v=\"f216f6d5d0b6ef819f6e02bf8357cefd\" image-id=\"WmOBKwJjHIib\" theme=\"iy-theme\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; aspect-ratio: 1.4997880457821111; max-width: 3538px;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>One of the key priorities for the new head coach was to bring in leaders who could add some much-needed experience to the first-team squad.<\/p>\n<p>Xhaka had plenty of qualities that made him an attractive option. He is Premier League proven, having spent 7 years with Arsenal, in addition to his single campaign at Sunderland.<\/p>\n<p>The midfielder has also demonstrated his leadership ability for both club and country in recent months, helping the Black Cats seal European qualification, whilst contributing hugely to Switzerland reaching the final 8 of the World Cup for the first time in 72 years.<\/p>\n<p>Get a brand new Chelsea 26\/27 home stadium shirt from Fanatics here<\/p>\n<h2>Where does this leave Chelsea\u2019s transfer plans?<\/h2>\n<p>The club don\u2019t appear to be interested in recruiting any other leaders based on the current transfer rumours.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pep Chavarria<\/strong> is pretty old at 28, but the Rayo Vallecano defender has never been a top-level player, and it is believed he is only being pursued after the failure to recruit another of Alonso\u2019s former players, Alejandro Grimaldo.<\/p>\n<p>Maxence Lacroix is arguably more in line with what Alonso has requested, but he has only captained Crystal Palace once in 98 appearances, so you do wonder how well he would do if he is asked to take on a leadership position in Chelsea\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15513","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\/15513","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=15513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}