{"id":587681,"date":"2026-05-16T18:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587681\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:11:08","slug":"xabi-alonso-chelsea-closing-in-on-appointing-spaniard-as-new-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/587681\/","title":{"rendered":"Xabi Alonso: Chelsea closing in on appointing Spaniard as new manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea<\/a> are closing in on appointing Spaniard Xabi Alonso as the club’s next permanent head coach.<\/p>\n

The former Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen boss, 44, is expected to sign a four-year deal in the coming days.<\/p>\n

The Stamford Bridge club have been keen to secure a replacement for Liam Rosenior, who was sacked last month.<\/p>\n

BBC Sport reported on Monday that Chelsea<\/a> had started contacting prospective new managers, including Alonso, Bournemouth<\/a>‘s Andoni Iraola, Fulham<\/a>‘s Marco Silva and Crystal Palace<\/a>‘s Oliver Glasner.<\/p>\n

However, former Real and Liverpool<\/a> midfielder Alonso has emerged as the club’s preferred candidate and talks are now reaching a conclusion.<\/p>\n

The club were keen to get the FA Cup final against Manchester City<\/a> out of the way before making any knowledge of their appointment public.<\/p>\n

Talks have been ongoing for a number of weeks and Alonso is understood to have been open to the role if he received certain assurances.<\/p>\n

Alonso has been linked with a potential move to Liverpool<\/a>, where he spent five seasons as a player, in recent weeks with the pressure on Arne Slot increasing following a disappointing season.<\/p>\n

But it is understood the Anfield club are preparing to stick with Slot for next season – although it remains to be seen whether Liverpool<\/a>‘s stance alters should the team fail to qualify for the Champions League.<\/p>\n

Alonso has been out of work since he left Real after less than eight months in charge in January.<\/a><\/p>\n

He led Leverkusen to their first Bundesliga title – secured without losing a game – as well as the German Cup in his first full season as a senior club manager during the 2023-24 campaign before moving to the Bernabeu last summer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea are closing in on appointing Spaniard Xabi Alonso as the club’s next permanent head coach. The former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-587681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}