Chelsea elevate 'manager' Xabi Alonso to sporting director level to persuade him to come to Stamford Bridge

Chelsea have seemingly given the keys to their operation to Xabi Alonso in order to persuade him to join – and we don’t mind that at all.

Matt Law was on the London is Blue podcast this week with plenty to talk about. The appointment of Xabi Alonso is clearly the big news of the last few days. Law spoke a little about Alonso and the “manager” title he’s been given as opposed to the “head coaches” Chelsea had before.

Alonso elevated above previous Chelsea head coaches

“The way it’s been explained to me – he’s basically now part of this sporting leadership team, Law explained.

“Clearly he’s not a sporting director, but he comes onto the sporting leadership team level. There’s the owners, then there’s the sporting leadership team, you used to then have the head coach.

“This has been put to me as simply as: he is an equal in that setup. So it is different, he will be listened to. He will be, I do think, he would be able to go in there and say ‘this just isn’t working’ [if he wants to get rid of players].”

This is clearly a move in the right direction from Chelsea.

You can see him them discuss that in the clip embedded here: