LONDON — New Chelsea boss Xabi Alonso says he’s spoken to midfielder Enzo Fernandez, whose future with the club has been in doubt for months.
Alonso signed on as the coach in May, took charge on July 1, and had his first press conference at Stamford Bridge on Monday.
Fernandez was handed an internal two-game suspension in April for saying in a podcast he would like to live in Madrid, amid speculation about a move to Real Madrid. Real Madrid denied this month holding an interest in signing Fernandez.
Asked if he would like Fernandez to remain at Stamford Bridge, Alonso said, “Yes.”
“We have spoken,” Alonso added. ”But as you can understand, what we have spoken about remains private.”
Fernandez is at the World Cup preparing with Argentina to play England in a semifinal on Wednesday in Atlanta. He’s one of four Chelsea players still involved in the World Cup alongside England duo Reece James and Trevoh Chalobah and France’s Malo Gusto.
Chelsea finished 10th in the Premier League last season, falling from fourth in the previous season.
Alonso said qualifying for Europe was one of his targets.
“For sure that’s a goal,” the former Bayer Leverkusen and Real Madrid coach said. “But to reach that goal you need to do many right things and to be part of that process, how do we want to play, how we want to see ourselves, how we want to approach a game wherever we go.
“That’s my job. That’s why I am really looking forward to having the whole squad. We are ambitious and we in Chelsea need to share that energy, that ambition, as well as that hunger to want to have success.”
Chelsea last won the Premier League in 2017 under Antonio Conte. Alonso is the eighth permanent manager since then.
The 44-year-old Spaniard danced around the subject when asked whether he was confident he will be given enough time to build a team that could challenge for the title.
“What I am sure is that we have the ambition to want to win a lot of games, to be competitive,” he said.
“I’m not going to say what will happen in May. It’s absolutely too early to say that but I am confident, I am optimistic that we can have a great season.”