All this talk about tweaks, changes and ambitions will be meaningless if the club cannot deliver. Chelsea need to get things right this summer. They have failed for four seasons now. That has left them in a bad position, both sportingly and financially. And if they get their next managerial appointment wrong, it is only going to get worse.
Unfortunately, after what we have seen over the last four years, it is hard to be confident that the club management will get it right. But one can only hope that they have recognised their mistakes, learned from them and are now ready to make the correct choices.
That might start with recognising that the manager is the captain of the ship. He needs to have more say than what Chelsea’s previous managers have been given under BlueCo. In fact, at times, they have seemed to avoid appointing top managers just to keep their structure.
Now, they probably won’t be able to appoint one if they tried their hardest. Do you really see a Luis Enrique or a Pep Guardiola or someone of that calibre taking the Chelsea job right now? That is what four unsuccessful years can do to even a big club.
Who is Chelsea’s first-choice to be the club’s next manager?
According to MaxFSport on X, Xabi Alonso is who Chelsea would like to lead the project. The Spanish manager is cautious but hasn’t said no yet. The Blues have other options if they can’t convince him.
Chelsea must do everything that they can to convince Alonso that Chelsea is the place to be. Half a decade back, this deal would have been easily completed. But now, things have changed and the Blues don’t have the track record of winning things that they did under previous ownership.
So, they have some work to do when it comes to convincing Alonso. He will want more say on transfers, how things are done at the club and everything else. And that needs to be provided to him. The alternative is losing out. Unfortunately, there is no other top ‘option’ out there, no matter who else Chelsea might have on their shortlist.
Xabi Alonso is the right choice, now Chelsea need to get it done
At Bayer Leverkusen, Alonso showed that he can win with a squad full of youngsters. That experience would come in handy at Chelsea.
At the same time, the presence of someone like Granit Xhaka in that team showed the importance of experience, something that Chelsea have overlooked under BlueCo. Alonso needs to be given the freedom to make such signings if he feels that will take the club forward.
Whatever transfer policy that BlueCo might have had so far needs to be forgotten about and left in the past. It is time to move in a different direction. This current one has brought not much other than failure.
It is great to see that they are prioritising Alonso. That is the correct move. But this needs to translate into something concrete. It cannot end as another rumour that leads nowhere.
