{"id":3145,"date":"2026-05-02T10:02:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T10:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=3145"},"modified":"2026-05-02T10:02:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T10:02:39","slug":"andoni-iraola-deemed-the-strongest-candidate-for-pl-job-as-chelsea-manager-search-takes-fresh-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=3145","title":{"rendered":"Andoni Iraola Deemed &#8216;The Strongest Candidate&#8217; For PL Job As Chelsea Manager Search Takes Fresh Twist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<article>\n<p><strong>Chelsea and Manchester United could soon be involved in a battle for the same manager, according to reports.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Telegraph<\/em>\u2018s Chief Football Correspondent Jason Burt has revealed that Andoni Iraola is the \u201cstrongest candidate\u201d for the United job if the Red Devils choose not to appoint Michael Carrick on a permanent basis.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea are believed to have got in touch with Iraola\u2019s agent to ascertain his interest in the vacant post at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<p>However, the Bournemouth head coach is not the only one under consideration, with the likes of Xabi Alonso and Fulham\u2019s Marco Silva having also been contacted by the Blues over the past couple of days.<\/p>\n<h2>Iraola likes the idea of living in the capital<\/h2>\n<p>If both clubs do decide that the Spaniard is their number one candidate, it seems Chelsea may have one major advantage over United.<\/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<p>Burt claims that Iraola is \u201cattracted by living in London\u201d and that fact has previously caught the attention of Crystal Palace, who were hoping to speak to him about replacing Oliver Glasner at Selhurst Park.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the Bournemouth boss would surely see the <strong>Chelsea roles<\/strong> as a much more attractive proposition. His Cherries side are six places above Palace in the Premier League table, and he would more than likely see a move there as a sideways step, rather than advancing his career.<\/p>\n<h2>Chelsea have not finalised their shortlist<\/h2>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"0fab81ce12e48a0794275e1d82449fb1\" image-id=\"1076459490\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><!-- https:\/\/smartframe.io\/embedding-support --><br \/>It should be pointed out that there is still a chance that Iraola may not even get interviewed by the Blues\u2019 leadership team.<\/p>\n<p>While the club are known to be fans of the 43-year-old, they are only at the stage of sounding out potential candidates, and the interview process hasn\u2019t even begun. He may not make the final shortlist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more about the Chelsea First Team Squad for 2025\/26 here<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/article><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea and Manchester United could soon be involved in a battle for the same manager,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3145","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\/3145","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=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}