Chelsea's New Era Under Xabi Alonso: Goals and Youth Emerge
Chelsea’s new era under Xabi Alonso is only two games old, but the themes are already emerging: goals, youth, and a few early selection headaches.
Behind closed doors at Cobham on Thursday, Chelsea eased past League One side Bromley 3-0, with Jamie Gittens and Emmanuel Emegha both on target again, joined on the scoresheet by Joao Pedro. It followed a 3-1 win over Crawley Town last weekend and gave Alonso a neat, if low-key, two-from-two start to life in the Blues dugout.
The scoreline was routine. The implications were not.
Emegha hits stride – then hits trouble
Emegha, the summer arrival from Strasbourg via the BlueCo pipeline, has wasted no time announcing himself. Goals in back-to-back friendlies have underlined why Strasbourg made him captain and why Chelsea moved early to secure him ahead of the 2026/27 season.
Twenty-six goals in 65 Ligue 1 games is not the return of a prospect who needs sheltering. It is the profile of a forward who expects to play.
At Chelsea, that is no simple task. Joao Pedro is firmly established as the club’s first-choice striker, and Alonso’s system is clearly built around the Brazilian’s movement and finishing. For Emegha, the brief was clear: arrive, score, and make yourself impossible to ignore.
He started to do exactly that. Then the setback arrived.
Against Bromley, the striker is understood to have picked up a hamstring issue that was serious enough to keep him out of Chelsea’s initial 27-man squad for the flight to Australia on Friday. For a player trying to accelerate his adaptation, missing the opening leg of pre-season is a cruel interruption.
Emegha stayed behind, as did fellow new signing Geovany Quenda, who is dealing with what is believed to be only a minor problem. Alonso will hope both issues stay in that category.
Gittens reminds Chelsea what he can be
If Emegha’s start was eye-catching, Gittens’ resurgence might be even more significant.
Last season was a grind for the winger. Injuries stalled his rhythm, restricted his minutes and left his debut campaign at Stamford Bridge feeling incomplete. This pre-season, he has returned with a point to prove and the sharpness to back it up.
His goal against Bromley added to a bright body of work in these early friendlies and came at exactly the right time. Competition out wide is intensifying, and Gittens knows it.
Pedro Neto is already in the building. Kerim Alajbegovic, the highly rated Bayer Leverkusen teenager, is firmly on Chelsea’s radar. The club’s interest in the Bosnia and Herzegovina international has a clear knock-on effect: if Chelsea move, someone will have to make way.
Standard Sport understands Chelsea would have to consider selling Neto or Gittens, or sanctioning a loan for Gittens, to create space for Alajbegovic. That is the reality of a squad being aggressively reshaped – and the backdrop against which every pre-season performance is now judged.
Gittens is doing what he can. His output in the final third has offered a timely reminder of his directness and end product, and he will feel there is a window to impress while Rogers enjoys an extended break after the World Cup with England.
Neto, Alajbegovic and the looming wide dilemma
Neto’s situation is more nuanced. Chelsea are not actively putting the Portugal winger up for sale and have no immediate plans to move him on. Yet there is an acceptance that serious offers would be listened to.
For a player of his profile, that is a delicate place to be: not on the market, but not entirely ring-fenced either.
Neto is also away on a post-World Cup break, which hands Gittens extra oxygen in the short term. Every sharp run, every goal, every minute under Alonso counts while established names are absent. The message from Gittens so far is simple: do not forget me when the full squad reconvenes.
Behind the headline names, the Bromley friendly also carried a familiar Chelsea subplot: youth.
Teenagers Landon Emenalo, Reggie Walsh and Reggie Watson all picked up minutes as Alonso spread the workload and took another close look at the club’s next generation before the squad boarded the plane to Australia. These are the quiet auditions that often shape loan plans, depth charts and, occasionally, breakthroughs.
Alonso’s start has been confident, controlled and quietly decisive. He has goals from his new striker, a rejuvenated winger forcing his way into the conversation, and a looming decision on how many wide forwards he can realistically keep happy.
The early wins are welcome. The real tests, on and off the pitch, are only just beginning.
