So here we are again. Chelsea lose/don’t win, Chelsea twitter goes nuts, there’s a public inquiry, everyone is rubbish, manager out (and yes, I’ve seen Alonso out tweets already). It’s such a common pattern, I almost logged out of twitter when we went behind against Arsenal. People start forming opinions with emotions rather than facts or logic, and I know from personal experience, that’s always a bad idea. Some people want instant success, instant perfection, and that’s simply not realistic.
We’re four games in all competitions into a new managers reign with some key players injured and the squad not complete. To judge now is crazy. We’re nowhere near the finished article yet, and there’s plenty of logical reasons for this.
However, what of the legitimate concerns about our defence and the allegedly chaotic style of play we’ve seen so far?
To explain this, I think its firstly important to understand Xabi’s football philosophy. Its clearly a high press, high energy, aggressive style of play which gets the ball forwards as quickly as possible, very clearly inspired by the geggen-pressing popularised by Jurgen Klopp, and to a degree, our own Thomas Tuchel. It demands a lot of players, high energy, high stamina, and in reality it takes time to implement.
First lets address the possession issue. Xabi’s is not Pep or Maresca style system, of slow sideways passing, slow build up and possession for its own sake. However, when its fully implemented it still allows a team to have most of the possession and to control a game. For example, at Bayer Leverkusen Xabi’s team averaged 58% possession and at Real Madrid 60%. It took time at Leverkusen to get to that, but he was allowed to build and achieved it.
Xabi’s philosophy also isn’t restricted to a single formation. He’s used 3-4-2-1, 4-3-3 (4-2-1-3) and even 4-4-2 as starting formation as his two previous clubs. It’s got results.
At Leverkusen it took Alonso more time, with less high quality players. He lost his first game there 5-1 and in the 24 league games in his first season, conceded 33 goals, with 12 wins, 7 defeats and 5 draws, 41 points (64 in a 38 game season) with a squad weaker than our current one in my view.
The next season however, with more time together and a slightly improved squad, they conceded only 24 goals in 34 league games, the best defence in the Bundesliga, and won the league unbeaten. Remember, this is a league dominated by Bayern Munich, financially and in terms of quality. Not an easy league to win for any other club. But Xabi did it, and unbeaten. Its a truly staggering achievement by any metric.
At Real Madrid, where he adapted to a 4-3-3 formation, but with the same philosophy, and obviously with better players through the squad, the team had 45 points after 19 games when he got sacked (not for results). With a stronger squad its always easier to implement a new philosophy and get results, so he had a more immediate impact.
That hasn’t quite been the case at Chelsea though.
Remember, at Chelsea, he’s had to rebuild the defence, bring in a new GK and will now have to partly overhaul the midfield. We also still have a lot of young players still to experience winning the really big trophies. So it’s not going to be a seamless transition, it will take time.
Bottom line, this system, under this manager, works. At Leverkusen, it has delivered a Bundesliga title, a domestic cup and a European final and a 2nd place in the Bundesliga the next season, and at Real he was on course for a 90 point season. Xabi Alonso has won major trophies playing this way. Jurgen Klopp had won before he came to Liverpool and had to implement a similar style. It took time and the right personnel to implement it, but when it worked, it really worked.
One other important point is Xabi Alonso can be pragmatic too. He’s willing to adapt his formation and tactics to ensure he gets results. He’s not afraid to make changes if things aren’t working. Unlike the current Manchester City manager, he’s not dogmatically wedded to one way of playing. He’ll always keep his basic philosophy, but he’ll adapt tactically to get results.
The next point is very significant too. We’ve only played 3 PL games and Moises Caicedo has not started one of them. This is a world class midfielder we’re missing, who brings defensive solidity and good passing to the team, and who can add more control. Our PL win percentage without Caicedo starting, since he joined the club in 2023, is just 30%. We’ve won only 3 of 10 PL games without him, and 2 of those were this season. We’ve also kept only 3 clean sheets in 10 PL games without him. All of this under 5 different managers. This is why we needed two midfielders this summer and need at least one in January, we’re way too reliant on Caicedo to protect that defence. Defence has been an issue for a while, and the stats show we were even worse last season in defence than this season - under 3 different coaches.
Xabi said after the Arsenal game Caicedo’s is not a long term injury. So when he’s back, with largely one game a week way into January, having him in there will help us a LOT. It’s very difficult to judge the overall performance of any team when you don’t have one of your best players available.
I’d also add that low key, we’re missing Marcos Palestra, who is perfectly suited for the wing back role (more than Jorrel Hato). He’s tall, powerful, quick, good defensively and bought for this system. He’ll probably play LWB and add defensive solidity there, and with Reece in midfield Caicedo will probably play the left side of the midfield. That weak side suddenly becomes a lot stronger, with more power and physicality.
Chelsea’s attack is dangerous, one of the best in the league in my view. Morgan Rogers, Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro will deliver lots of goals and assists. Even our attacking subs, Estevao Willian, Geovany Quenda and Danny Welbeck, can have a huge impact. We saw what Estevao can do against Arsenal, when he almost grabbed a sensational equaliser. Xabi Alonso has improved attackers at every club he’s managed, I don’t see that changing at Chelsea.
In defence, Josh Acheampong looks like he might be on the way to a breakout season. Levi Colwill, we need to give time to as the time from coming back to training to pre-injury sharpness for the injury he had is 6 months. He’s not going to be fully himself until January. Again, they’re still learning the system, still developing chemistry, we need to give them time to do that. Hopefully we can play a back 4 (including GK) of Emi Martinez, Josh, Maxcene Lacroix and Colwill in most games so they can build those relationships and chemistry. I think Hato may need to play LCB in a few games until Levi really gets his sharpness, but he can absolutely do that.
Finally, I think Alonso has all the evidence he needs to demand two new midfielders. If we can get one in January whilst doing a pre-agreement for Alex Scott in the summer, that would be perfect. Getting Pablo Barrios especially in January would be a huge get, he’s an excellent midfielder. I’m also a fan of Manu Kone, though he’s not my first choice. Ideally we’d get Lamine Camara but I personally believe that’s unlikely now due to the issues with Monaco.
Either way I think we get a midfielder in January and Alex Scott pre-agreed for the summer, and that would be great recruitment. I think we have enough to get to January, but I think we’ll need one more in midfield then. I do think with how we’ve backed Xabi, they’ll get that done in January, especially given we now have the Enzo money
I always felt with this season, that expecting a title challenge immediately was unrealistic, even if we got the players we wanted / needed this summer. It takes time to implement a new philosophy, and most of these players are still relatively young and haven’t won much yet. Thankfully we now have people in the squad with the leadership, experience and mentality to help guide them, and set a new culture at the club. That too, will take some time. But ultimately, I think we have to trust Xabi and let him build, and get the full squad he needs.
One thing which impressed me against Arsenal was our mentality when we went behind. Last season I visibly saw heads go down and us almost give up when going behind. Not against Arsenal. We didn’t give up, heads didn’t go down. We kept fighting, kept pressing for an equaliser, kept going for it and we didn’t concede a third. We stayed right in the game to the very end, kept believing in ourselves and very nearly got an equaliser. That itself is a big improvement in mentality from previous years in my view.
I’m also pretty confident we’ll improve as the season goes on. With one game a week we’ll have more time to really learn this system on the training pitch, build chemistry on the pitch and improve the mentality in the squad. Hopefully we’ll get our best players back and then sign a midfielder in January. Without Europe, the players will be fresher going into the second half of the season in comparison to many of our rivals. By then, I also expect us to be more confident in each other and how we play. As such, I think we’ll end the season strongly, getting 70-75 points and finishing 3rd or 4th, and possibly winning a trophy.
I’m convinced we’re on the right path with Xabi Alonso, we just need to back him and give him time. It’s going to take at least another year until we have a squad ready in terms of personnel, tactically and mentality to really challenge for the league. For this squad, going from 10th to top was never realistic.
There’ll be ups and downs this season, but that’s expected with where we are, and I’m confident of a good finish. Then with another summer of good recruitment in the right areas, and a year’s experience together with Xabi, we’ll be ready to challenge for the title. We shouldn’t let one defeat (or two) get us down or lose faith. Xabi is an elite manager, he’s got the track record to prove it, his football is proven to deliver success, and he will deliver success if we back him.
The Score