Chelsea's Struggles Under Xabi Alonso Continue
Chelsea’s bruising afternoon underlined just how far Xabi Alonso’s rebuild still has to go. One competitive half, a collapse after the break, and familiar questions about soft defending and blunt attacking left the manager with nowhere to hide.
“It was disappointing, especially the result,” Alonso told MOTD, the frustration obvious. “We can do better. We must do better.”
For 45 minutes, Chelsea stayed in the fight. They competed, they pressed, they hovered around dangerous areas. But they never truly cut the opposition open. The final ball went missing, the last dribble broke down, and promising moves fizzled out before a clear sight of goal appeared.
“First half we were around but not creating big chances,” Alonso admitted. “We missed the last pass, the last dribble to get shots in clear positions.”
The real damage came after the interval. The intensity dipped, the concentration slipped, and Chelsea’s recurring weakness at set pieces ripped the game away from them. Three goals flew in, with dead-ball situations again at the heart of the problem.
“You need to be very focused,” Alonso said. “Once you concede from set-pieces, it gives them an advantage and control. Once you concede the second goal it becomes much harder and we lost a little bit of our discipline when we were close to the box. We have to correct, it was our mistakes.”
The pressure finally told in the numbers. Alonso has now become only the sixth manager in Premier League history to see his team concede two or more goals in each of his first five matches in the competition, joining Mick McCarthy, Sammy Lee, Terry Connor, Slavisa Jokanovic and Scott Parker in an unwanted club.
Levi Colwill did not sugar-coat it either. The defender, speaking to Sky Sports, cut straight to the heart of Chelsea’s frailty.
“It was tough,” he said. “Firstly conceding a set piece was not the best, we tried to push and maybe overexposed ourselves, played some passes we shouldn’t and they hit us on the counter, and got the second goal and the third goal hit home and hurt. Second half we weren’t good enough and we have a lot to work on in the international break.”
Five goals conceded from set pieces already tells its own story. Colwill called it out.
“Not been good enough. At times we have been bullied in the box, we need to definitely improve with that. We have got all trust in our set piece coach and still adjusting to new things. We do need to improve as a team.”
The defender insisted the dressing room did not fold mentally, even as the scoreline ran away from them.
“I don’t think spirit went down. It hurt and we tried to push for equaliser and we got hit on the counter attack. I don’t think our spirit dropped.
“We still need to improve a lot. We can’t rely on our front three to pull us out of danger. The rest of us have to help as much as possible. We definitely have a lot of room to improve.”
Alonso echoed that sense that the problems run through the whole structure, not just the back line.
“It’s everything,” he said when asked about defensive improvements after the international break. “For sure individual and collective details will have to be better, but it’s not only defensively, with the ball there are parts where we need to do better.”
The international break arrives at an awkward time, halting momentum for some clubs and offering breathing space for others. For Chelsea, it feels like both an inconvenience and a necessity.
“It is what it is,” Alonso said. “Now we will have time with some players, but we can’t change that.”
Amid the frustration, one moment cut through the gloom. Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli stepped onto the pitch and into the record books, becoming the first player born in 2010 to play in the Premier League and the first 16-year-old ever to appear for Chelsea in the competition. A reminder that, beneath the defensive chaos and tactical teething problems, the club’s future is already knocking on the door.
The question now is whether Alonso and this squad can tighten up quickly enough to give that future a stable platform, or whether more painful afternoons like this are still waiting on the other side of the break.
