Chelsea are wasting 'incredible talent' - Alonso insists 'it's a process'

19 Sept 2026 12:15 BST |
4 min read

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Chelsea hit the lowest point of the nascent Xabi Alonso era on Friday evening when they suffered a chastening 3-0 loss away at Brentford.

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The Blues took on their West London neighbours without star striker Joao Pedro and a decimated midfield, consisting of summer signings Valentin Barco and Jordan Henderson, and it showed.

Chelsea struggled to create a consistent attacking threat, and their defensive vulnerabilities, which have been present all season, ultimately came back to bite them. Brentford ground them down and pummelled them – or as Levi Colwill put it, they were “bullied” on set pieces.

The still-undefeated Bees have temporarily moved into third in the table, while Chelsea sit seventh. Xabi Alonso and company now have three weeks to stew over a three-game winless run in the Premier League and an abysmal defensive record.

The Spaniard showed at Bayer Leverkusen that he can fix a leaky backline, but the pressure at Chelsea is more akin to Real Madrid than the Werkself. Alonso, though, is keenly aware of the task at hand.

“Well, we knew that it’s a process, that it’s still [only] five games in a competitive Premier League, that each game is really hard, and we knew that it was going to be hard, so it’s nothing new,” he said after the game.

Alonso forced to trust youth – but is it enough?

With the match seemingly lost, Alonso brought on three teenagers: Geovany Quenda, Estevao and Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli, with the latter making his competitive debut for the senior side.

Although he had Romeo Lavia on the bench, Alonso opted to hand the 16-year-old his first-team bow. “Yeah, with 2-0 we brought Madhi – he has great energy. At the moment, in the middle, we were short of numbers,” he explained.

Regarding Quenda and Estevao, who have both struggled for minutes this season, he added: “The other ones are Geo and Estevao. Yeah, because they have trained well, they are part of the squad.

“Before, we were playing for 75 minutes with a squad with experience, and we have had good things, but not for a long enough time to compete for a better result.”

Questions are being raised over the manager’s use of Estevao in particular. The 19-year-old wonderkid has only made late cameo appearances in the Premier League so far, playing less than half an hour.

This has given rise to suggestions that he is growing increasingly frustrated and could potentially push for a loan move away in January. Given how Cole Palmer and Morgan Rogers have started the season, it is easy to understand why Alonso has been reluctant to use Estevao.

However, the youngster didn’t join Chelsea to sit on the bench. He is one of the biggest prospects in world football and needs to play. He would walk into many Premier League starting elevens, yet he can’t get more than 10 minutes per match at Stamford Bridge.

Estevao is also said to be concerned about the fact that Chelsea haven’t made good on their promise of converting him into a No.10. When he joined the club, his agent said that the Blues’ long-term plan for him would be to use him in a central playmaking role. That hasn’t happened yet.

Besides sorting out the defence, this is one of the major problems Alonso has to solve – or else Chelsea could lose one of their most talented players. Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp is already worried that the Blues are squandering the Brazilian.

“I look at Estevao: is he too good a player not to play in this team? He is an incredible talent, but how do you get him in the team when you have got Morgan Rogers, Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro? These are the problems he has to solve,” he said.