Alonso choosing Chelsea is a leap of faith - and a coup for the club who must make it work

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That’s why I didn’t want to go anywhere where I was not convinced.” On the face of it, it’s hard to understand why Alonso is convinced by Chelsea right now. The red flags aren’t difficult to spot at a club that has gained a reputation for being unmanageable. The Spaniard will be the fifth permanent appointment in the dugout in four years of BlueCo ownership, and there’s little evidence across that time that the consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly has a strategy in place to provide a platform for stability or success (unless signing as many young players as you can for as much money as you can qualifies as success). Liam Rosenior, a raw and inexperienced coach, was never going to turn down the chance to be in charge at Chelsea, and the same goes for his predecessor Enzo Maresca, who had just won promotion from the Championship with Leicester City. You can make a similar case for Graham Potter swapping Brighton for Chelsea in 2023. But Alonso, who was regarded as one of the brightest young managers in Europe when he left Bayer Leverkusen for Real Madrid last summer, feels different. It’s hard to escape the feeling that Chelsea, in their current state — languishing in 10th place in the Premier League, 30 points behind the leaders Arsenal and hanging onto the coattails of Bournemouth, Brighton and Brentford — need Alonso far more than Alonso needs Chelsea. “Is a real top manager going to come to Chelsea Football Club at the moment with the position we’re in?” John Terry, the former Chelsea captain, said in a social media video last month. Yes, it turns out, is the answer. Terry is not everyone’s cup of tea, and there’s also an argument that he has his own agenda here after admitting he was frustrated to be overlooked by Chelsea for the interim manager’s role before Rosenior replaced Maresca as head coach in January. But the question he asked about Chelsea’s capacity to attract a top coach, in their present position, was not without merit. Chelsea have spent more than £1.8billion on players since BlueCo completed their takeover in 2022, wasting huge sums on a flawed recruitment policy that their own left-back identified as a problem and a barrier to success in an interview with The Athletic in March. “We have a good core of players. The foundations are there,” Marc Cucurella said. “But to fight for major trophies such as the Premier League or the Champions League, you need more. Signing young players only might complicate achieving those goals.” Others, talking more broadly about football and not specifically about Chelsea, had previously highlighted the folly of this kind of strategy in the transfer market. To only “recruit players under 22 or under 24 would be ridiculous because you want to get the best value you can, whether that’s a 35-year-old or an 18-year-old,” Luke Bornn, a scientific adviser for Teamworks and former Harvard statistics professor whose career includes spells working for the Italian football club Roma and the NBA team Sacramento Kings, told The Athletic in 2025. Bornn was sitting alongside Billy Beane at the time he made those remarks. A penny, or £1.8bn, for Beane’s thoughts on Chelsea’s own version of Moneyball. On the pitch, Chelsea have won the Conference League and the Club World Cup, but they have yet to demonstrate under this regime that they are capable of producing results on a consistent basis to even come close to mounting a title challenge. Damningly, there has been only one top-four finish across four seasons. Their best-performing head coach (Maresca) won only 26 out of 57 Premier League matches, and Saturday’s FA Cup final defeat against Manchester City leaves Chelsea staring at the possibility of a second season under BlueCo without European football of any description. With all of that in mind, it feels as though Alonso is taking a sizeable leap of faith here — out of the frying pan at Real Madrid, where he lasted seven months before his dismissal in January on the back of something close to player mutiny, and into the fire at Chelsea. In the eyes of many, Liverpool would have felt like a much more natural fit for Alonso, who has spoken in the past about his deep affection for the club where he spent five seasons, making more than 200 appearances and winning the Champions League in 2005. “You know how special Liverpool is, once a red, always a red, and that’s not a slogan, that’s not a logo — it’s real and we share that belonging,” Alonso told the BBC back in 2019, when he was beginning his managerial journey with Real Sociedad B and asked about the possibility of taking over at Liverpool one day. Yet the reality is there isn’t a job available at Anfield right now, and despite a hugely disappointing season and growing supporter unrest with the team’s results and performances under Arne Slot, everything so far points to the Dutchman remaining in charge. Indeed, even if Liverpool’s owners did sack Slot this summer, there is no guarantee they would have made Alonso their main target if he was still available. They preferred Slot two years ago, when Alonso ruled himself out to commit to a second season at Leverkusen, and The Athletic has been told that Alonso’s availability since leaving Madrid hasn’t been a point of discussion at Anfield. It’s also apparent that little importance is attached to the fact he’s a former Liverpool player. Of course, all of that is easier to say when there isn’t a vacancy. As much as it’s easy to question Alonso’s decision to join Chelsea, the world of football management is complex and playing the waiting game can be dangerous. Timing always plays a big part in the jobs that are turned down or taken by managers, and that often leads to compromise of some description. In Alonso’s case, he was operating from a position of strength in his talks with Chelsea because of his stock and the club’s predicament. The fact that he is the first “manager” to be appointed by BlueCo feels significant — a title that was Chelsea’s suggestion and reflects Alonso’s seniority compared to his predecessors. Crucially for Alonso, he will have influence and a voice at Chelsea, which was a key factor in his decision to take the job and contrasts sharply with his negative experience at Real Madrid, where he didn’t feel supported by the club’s management and those close to him labelled the team uncoachable. On top of that, Alonso viewed the length of contract that Chelsea were prepared to offer him – four years – together with their decision to allow him to bring his entire backroom staff with him, as further signs of the club’s faith and trust in him to develop his project. Amid all the doom and gloom at Stamford Bridge this season, it’s also worth remembering that this is a Chelsea squad with plenty of talent and that, allied to assurances that the club will not just strengthen the first XI this summer but address the lack of experience, will give Alonso the confidence he can put together a team in his image. Upstairs, there is talk of lessons being learned from the mistakes that have been made. There is also talk of collaboration around building a culture, and there is talk of alignment when it comes to Alonso working closely with the sporting directors and owners to sign players. Now there needs to be action. The ownership’s charm offensive worked to get Alonso on board. They went early and strong to convince him that Chelsea was the right place for him, and his appointment feels like a coup for the club. Chelsea simply have to make it work. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms