After a tumultuous season that saw a Club World Cup win get forgotten through poor performances and a slide down the table, Chelsea appoint Xabi Alonso as the man to salvage the project. The FA Cup final defeat to Manchester City landed the Blues a trophyless campaign that is set to see them struggle to get European football.
Chelsea Appoint Xabi Alonso on Four Year Deal
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### Following Disaster
The former Bayern Munich and Liverpool midfielder has an interesting act to follow at Stamford Bridge. While Enzo Maresca was somewhat popular when he departed, his successor Liam Rosenior failed to ever make much of an impact and was sacked after a historically bad run in the league.
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The bar has certainly been lowered for Alonso as the big ask of replacing Maresca after two trophy wins has shifted a bit to just needing to avoid the bad results and uninspired football that plagued Rosenior’s tenure in charge.
### A Strong Appointment
For all of the bad words slung at Clearlake Capital and those in their sporting structure, they have at a glance made a great appointment with this move. The Spaniard is an accomplished manager who is most known for his time with Bayer Leverkusen. He not only broke Bayern Munich’s run of winning the league title but he did it while going undefeated in the league. The last coach to best the Bavarians was a little-known man by the name of Jurgen Klopp, which is exciting enough for Blues fans.
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He had a relatively poor time with Real Madrid yes, but that won’t be blamed on him as Los Blancos were first in La Liga when he left but have faltered without him and ended the campaign without a single trophy to their name.
**Featured Image Credit**
IMAGO / ZUMA Press Wire