Xabi Alonso’s preseason has had lots of journalists very impressed – but some have pointed out it wasn’t universally popular.
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After a preseason tour which has seen an insane number of miles travelled, Chelsea are back in the UK and preparing for their final friendly of the summer.
The Athletic have just put out a long piece from Simon Johnson (who was in Australia and Asia with them) all about the events of the tour. It’s got lots of juicy detail as ever, mostly praising the efforts of new manager Xabi Alonso on the training pitch.
The gushing about his long passing has been done already though – we were more interested in the negative hints in the article.
Chelsea fringe players feel they didn’t get fair chance under Alonso
“Not everyone was happy with how things were going for them on the tour,” Johnson wrote.
“It was felt by some of [the players] that Alonso had an A and a B team. This led them to feel they would not be figuring in his plans, because they would regularly be training and playing with what seemed to be a second string of academy youngsters and fringe players linked with moves away. Chelsea do not agree a two-tier system was in place and say Alonso gave everyone, including Under-21s players, a chance to impress.”
Certainly the fact that the team played two friendlies in two days, with a clear A team and B team, won’t have helped that impression.
In other news…
Nicolas Jackson’s impressive performance last night will have done wonders for his standing with Xabi Alonso.
Aaron Anselmino was taken off injured in the game today, and looked pretty heartbroken as he was struck down once again.
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