New **Chelsea** manager **Xabi Alonso** said the Blues have brilliant potential as he spoke at Stamford Bridge to the world’s media for the first time.
Alonso has signed a four-year deal with the two-time Champions League winners, and says this Chelsea squad has the qualities to be a great team.
Wanting to build a positive mentality__
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_“I am excited to join the club; the excitement is the club, the squad, and the opportunity to create excitement, respond with the supporters, to win games and to be successful._
_“I want to enjoy it, work together with the sporting directors, with the players, with the staff around._
_“I see it as a club that has great potential; we need to make some important decisions, but I think that there is a base already built, and now we need to follow up and continue to build, and build this mentality in order to be competitive on the pitch, and to try and win games._
Last season, the Blues were beaten on the final day of the Premier League season at Sunderland, meaning they finished 10th and missed out on European football for the second time in four seasons.
Trying to get Chelsea back in Europe
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> Chelsea were beaten on the final day of the 25/26 season by Sunderland, meaning they finished 10th and out of Europe. (Photo by George Wood/Getty Images)
Alonso has admitted that Chelsea’s goal is to try and reach European football next season,
“_Well, for sure that is the goal, but to reach that goal, you need to do many right things and be part of the process. How we want to play, how we want to see ourselves, how we want to approach the game wherever we go._
_“That is my goal, and is why I am really looking forward to, have the whole squad at this moment, we have some bits, but it is early days so far, but for sure we want to be there, and time will tell, but we are ambitious, and at Chelsea, so we need to share those ambitions as well, and that hunger to have some success.”_
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