{"id":9288,"date":"2026-05-16T19:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=9288"},"modified":"2026-05-16T19:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T19:38:07","slug":"chelsea-to-change-direction-under-xabi-alonso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=9288","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea to change direction under Xabi Alonso"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Todd Boehly and Xabi Alonso (Photo by Justin Setterfield, Juan Manuel Serrano Arce\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chelsea look to be closing in on hiring Xabi Alonso as their next manager, and other key details have emerged about the imminent appointment.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Spanish tactician has impressed in his relatively brief coaching career so far, particularly when he won the Bundesliga title with Bayer Leverkusen, and he should be a fine appointment for Chelsea next season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL CAUGHTOFFSIDE APP FOR ALL THE LATEST &#038; BREAKING UPDATES \u2013 STRAIGHT TO YOUR PHONE! ON <span role=\"presentation\"><u>APPLE<\/u><\/span> &#038; <span role=\"presentation\"><u>GOOGLE PLAY<\/u><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Perhaps even more than that, though, is the news from journalist Guillem Balague that Chelsea\u2019s owners seem prepared to modify their approach slightly and give their managers more control.<\/p>\n<p>So far, things haven\u2019t really gone to plan since Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali took over from Roman Abramovich, with a quick turnover of both managers and players.<\/p>\n<p>Even if there\u2019ll be plenty of Chelsea fans looking into how to buy Chelsea vs Tottenham tickets, it\u2019s also worth noting that there\u2019s been a lot of anger in the Stamford Bridge crowd lately, so those attending may continue to make their displeasure towards the ownership known.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea could do with a bit more stability, and perhaps a bit more delegating to true football experts.<\/p>\n<h2>Xabi Alonso already has big Chelsea win<\/h2>\n<p>According to Balague, this may already be the first big win for Alonso as he prepares to take the Chelsea job.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe are hearing from sources very close to the Chelsea decision makers that they are going to tweak the system to give the manager more voice. That is Xabi\u2019s first win and you are never stronger than when you are negotiating to land in a club,\u201d Balague posted on X, formerly Twitter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This will surely be music to the ears of CFC supporters, many of whom are clearly not happy with how things have been going this season.<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Want more CaughtOffside coverage? Add us as a <\/i><\/b><b><i><span draggable=\"true\">preferred source on Google<\/span><\/i><\/b><b><i>  to your favourites list for news you can trust<\/i><\/b><\/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 \/ <span class=\"topic\">Latest News<\/span><\/header>\n<div class=\"post-container col-s-4\">\n<p>\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<div class=\"img-cntr\"><picture><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1495\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-29-1.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1659269 lazyload\" alt=\"Joe Willock in action for Newcastle against Brighton\" srcset=\"https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-29-1-190x114.jpg 190w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-29-1-245x147.jpg 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srcset=\"https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-28-1-190x114.jpg 190w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-28-1-245x147.jpg 245w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-28-1-320x193.jpg 320w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-28-1-414x249.jpg 414w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-28-1-630x379.jpg 630w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width:1230px) 237px, (min-width:1020px) 190px, (min-width:900px) 280px, (min-width:680px) 30vw, (min-width:414px) 125px, 30vw\"\/><\/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 loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1495\" height=\"900\" src=\"https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1.jpg\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1659265 lazyload\" alt=\"Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola\" srcset=\"https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1-190x114.jpg 190w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1-245x147.jpg 245w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1-320x193.jpg 320w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1-414x249.jpg 414w,https:\/\/icdn.caughtoffside.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/COS-FeaturedHero-Image-Templates-27-1-630x379.jpg 630w\" data-sizes=\"(min-width:1230px) 237px, (min-width:1020px) 190px, (min-width:900px) 280px, (min-width:680px) 30vw, (min-width:414px) 125px, 30vw\"\/><\/picture><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n<\/section>\n<p>The Stamford Bridge crowd have booed the team off after bad results, while there have also been protests against the owners.<\/p>\n<p>If Chelsea do now change their approach slightly and give Alonso power to mould the team in his shape, that could be for the best in the long run.<\/p>\n<p>There are some risks with that approach as well, of course, but Alonso seems like a good enough manager that it\u2019s worth giving him the keys and trusting him to build something positive for the club in the long run.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End -->\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Todd Boehly and Xabi Alonso (Photo by Justin Setterfield, Juan Manuel Serrano Arce\/Getty Images) Chelsea&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9289,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9288","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\/9288","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=9288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}