{"id":8552,"date":"2026-05-15T01:50:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=8552"},"modified":"2026-05-15T01:50:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T01:50:51","slug":"mcfarlane-keeps-focus-on-fa-cup-as-chelsea-eye-xabi-alonso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=8552","title":{"rendered":"McFarlane keeps focus on FA Cup as Chelsea eye Xabi Alonso"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Chelsea caretaker manager Calum McFarlane has said it is not his role to discuss potential permanent appointments, amid reports of an approach for Xabi Alonso.<\/b><\/div>\n
Alonso has been named as a leading contender to become Chelsea’s next head coach, with the Spaniard reportedly receptive to a Premier League role.<\/div>\n

The 44-year-old has been out of work since leaving Real Madrid after just eight months in January, having previously impressed at Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\n

Alonso led the German side to their first-ever Bundesliga title in 2023\/24, without losing a game. It’s the only invincible campaign in the history of German football.<\/p>\n

Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola, who will leave the Cherries at the end of the season, has also been linked with the role.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup final against Manchester City, McFarlane said it is not his place to discuss the right permanent appointment.<\/div>\n

“There’s a lot of names linked with the job. It’s not really my place to say who should get it, or who’s a good manager, who’s not a good manager. My job is to prepare the team for Saturday and that’s all I’ll be focusing on.”<\/p>\n

McFarlane confirms Chelsea captain Reece James fit for FA Cup final<\/h3>\n

Ahead of Saturday’s showdown at Wembley, McFarlane confirmed that captain Reece James is fit and available for the Blues.<\/p>\n

“He’s trained well this week; we\u2019re happy with Reece. It was good to get him minutes (against Liverpool) and I felt he played well when he came on. So, it\u2019s largely positive around Reece.<\/p>\n

“In the lead-up to the Liverpool game, we were confident he was able to play those minutes and he came through them well. He’s trained well this week and we’re really hopeful he can finish the season in that sort of form.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelsea caretaker manager Calum McFarlane has said it is not his role to discuss potential…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8552","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\/8552","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=8552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}