{"id":9634,"date":"2026-05-17T09:26:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=9634"},"modified":"2026-05-17T09:26:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T09:26:06","slug":"xabi-alonso-announcement-imminent-as-chelsea-reach-agreement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=9634","title":{"rendered":"Xabi Alonso announcement imminent as Chelsea reach agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_65\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong>Chelsea have reportedly reached an agreement with Xabi Alonso to appoint the Spaniard as their next head coach ahead of next season. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Blues have been on the hunt for a new manager after Liam Rosenior was sacked in April following a poor run of results.<\/p>\n<p>Alonso is available after parting ways with Real Madrid in January, just seven months after he signed a three-year deal to lead the team.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Xabi Alonso announcement imminent as Chelsea reach agreement<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>According to The Athletic, \u201can agreement has been completed\u201d for Alonso to become the new Chelsea boss.<\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old has \u201caccepted the opportunity\u201d to take over the team and will sign a four-year contract. An announcement is expected \u201cimminently\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The ex-Spain international was one of several candidates for the vacancy, including Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva and Oliver Glasner, but he was always their \u201ctop target\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Despite reports that Alonso was holding out for former club Liverpool, he \u201cwanted\u201d to make the move to Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0The Premier League clubs with the most FA Cup final appearances<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The former midfielder spent five years at Anfield as a player, winning the UEFA Champions League in 2005. He went on to play for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich before retiring and moving into coaching.<\/p>\n<p>After learning his trade with the Real Sociedad B team, Alonso took up his first senior role with Bayer Leverkusen. He guided the German club to an unbeaten domestic campaign in his second year in charge, winning the Bundesliga and cup double.<\/p>\n<p>Alonso left Leverkusen last summer to replace Carlo Ancelotti at Real Madrid. He enjoyed a strong start at the club, winning 10 of his first 11 league matches in charge, but the team\u2019s form took a dip and he left Madrid following defeat to Barcelona in the Supercopa.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Power Rankings: PSG and Inter Milan celebrate silverware<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See Also \u2013\u00a0The Premier League managerial carousel: Who goes where?<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chelsea have reportedly reached an agreement with Xabi Alonso to appoint the Spaniard as their&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9635,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9634","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\/9634","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=9634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}