👴 It worked before! Will a giant be unbeatable with grandad signings?

👴 It worked before! Will a giant be unbeatable with grandad signings?

Just twelve months ago, everything at Chelsea seemed to be moving in the right direction again. After two disappointing years, the Blues returned to the Champions League, won the UEFA Conference League, and crowned their strong season with the Club World Cup title. In the final, newly crowned Champions League winners PSG were swept aside in impressive fashion with a 3-0 defeat. Expectations for the 2025/26 season were correspondingly high.

But instead of competing in the title race, Chelsea suffered an almost unprecedented collapse. After a poor December, former success coach Enzo Maresca had to go, and his inexperienced successor at this level, Liam Rosenior, never managed to get a grip on the young team either.

Between mid-March and May, they even suffered six straight league defeats, five of them without scoring. The usually success-spoiled club had last endured such a “run” back in 1912. By the end of the season, they were left in a completely miserable 10th place and out of European competition.

Two football grandpas for the Blues kindergarten

Alongside the undeniable incompetence of the club’s leadership, one of the main problems quickly identified was the squad’s lack of experience. The team had an average age of just 23.5, and true leaders have been sorely missing ever since Thiago Silva’s departure. That is exactly the issue new coach Xabi Alonso is now addressing.

Chelsea did once again invest huge sums this summer in top talents such as Morgan Rogers, Marco Palestra, and Geovany Quenda. But at the same time, a clear change of direction became apparent. Danny Welbeck (35) and Jordan Henderson (36) are both on the verge of moving to Stamford Bridge. Not even the recently imposed suspended transfer ban will change that.

Welbeck most recently impressed with 13 goals for Brighton. Henderson, who arrives from Brentford, captained Liverpool for years. Both are expected to give the hugely talented but often directionless group of stars — which in recent months has not rarely resembled a kindergarten — the stability it needs.

📸 Ryan Pierse - 2025 Getty Images

This plan Alonso is pursuing is by no means new. At Bayer Leverkusen, the Spaniard already relied on exactly this winning formula. In the summer of 2023, alongside promising youngsters like Nathan Tella, Victor Boniface, and Josip Stanišić, he also brought in the experienced Granit Xhaka and Jonas Hofmann. Xhaka in particular developed into the team’s leader and emotional driving force.

The result is well known: Leverkusen stormed to the first German league title in the club’s history unbeaten, also won the DFB-Pokal, and reached the Europa League final. So will Chelsea now become unbeatable in England too?

Of course, it would be presumptuous to expect the same success from the Londoners. The level of competition in England is simply too high for that. But if Alonso has already proven one thing, it is that a few experienced leaders can sometimes be far more valuable than the next supposed generational talent. And with that, titles can once again become the target.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

Indexed and credited by AIPROPX. Originating outlet: Yahoo Sports. Open at source →