Granit Xhaka suggested last month that his tactical suggestion was a big factor in Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso’s success with Bayer Leverkusen.
Given the cost to assemble Chelsea’s current squad and the reputation Xabi Alonso had when joining, the team’s start to the new season has been somewhat underwhelming.
With no European football to distract them, Chelsea have won four, drawn one, and lost three of their opening eight Premier League fixtures. Most recently, they suffered a 2-0 defeat at home to a Tottenham Hotspur team who had scored six goals in their other seven league games.
Alonso’s team have already slipped eight points off the pace, and even slow starters Liverpool look more likely to make a title challenge.
Amid questions around Alonso’s tactics in Chelsea’s own fanbase, an interview from September has resurfaced in which former Gunner Granit Xhaka suggests the manager’s most famous team was inspired by him.
“The first game when I went to Leverkusen with Xabi Alonso, we played Real Sociedad in Spain, the friendly game,” Xhaka recalled. “Xabi starts a back four, but the feeling on the pitch was not right.
“I went to Xabi, I said, ‘Xabi, I think that this team, back four, we will struggle a lot’. He said, ‘why?’ I said, ‘I think that we don’t have this character [or] players for this back four’. And he changed.
“This, for me, shows a big human being from a coach side. After this, everyone knows that we won the league unbeaten, we went to the Europa League final, we won the German cup after 32 years.”
Alonso obviously pushed to reunite with Xhaka over the summer, but Sunderland refused to sell amid suggestions that they viewed Chelsea’s first bid as insulting.
Though there were reports at the time that Xhaka was open to the move, he has since told the media that he felt his job with the north-east club wasn’t done.
Without Xhaka’s advice to fall back on, Alonso now needs to find his own strategy to turn things around at Chelsea.
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