Chelsea

Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso on how to manage a squad with 40 senior players:

"We manage well, with good group dynamics, whenever we need, we have different groups, and it's not been an issue at the moment."

Nizaar Kinsella
BBC Sport Chelsea reporter

Chelsea striker Liam Delap has lost the number nine shirt at the club and is one of several players now training separately to the main squad.

A number of players who could move before the transfer window closes on 1 September - including fellow forward Nicolas Jackson and winger Mykhailo Mudryk - are in a second training group at Cobham.

But club sources insist it is nothing like the "bomb squad" approach taken last season when several players were frozen out.

Chelsea are seeking £50 million for Delap and trying to reduce the size of their squad before the end of the summer transfer window, with 40 senior players on their books.

Englishman Delap joined the club in a £30m move from Ipswich Town last summer but only scored one Premier League goal in 28 Premier League appearances, 16 of which were as a substitute.

He was awarded the number nine shirt, but that has now gone to fellow forward Joao Pedro.

Chelsea

Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso on whether he is happy with his squad:

"I'm very happy I think we have made many right choices. Very good balance in terms of quality, personality, maturity, different stages of their career, good momentum. We are in a good position I would say."

Chelsea

Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso on his team's preparation for the new season:

"We feel ready. We've prepared the whole pre-season, six weeks with some players from the first day, others coming later. The desire, the hunger, the ambition to play the Premier League is already in the building, in each training. Looking forward to it."

Chelsea

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Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso on his friendship with Alvaro Arbeloa:

"Of course you can have a relationship, but once you're on the pitch, no friends, no past. It's just the 90 minutes that we are playing, fighting for each club."

Chelsea begin their Premier League season with a West London derby at Craven Cottage.

The Blues faced Fulham early in their 2025/2026 campaign, beating the Cottagers 2-0 with goals from Joao Pedro and Enzo Fernandez to go three games unbeaten in August.

Away at Fulham in January, Chelsea were defeated 2-1 having played much of the game a player down after Marc Cucurella was sent off in the 22nd minute.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

The question which everyone will want to ask Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso this afternoon is what does the future hold for Enzo Fernandez?

Earlier this year, the Blues told Fernandez's agent that the midfielder could depart for £120m and set a deadline of 14 August for offers.

That date passed without any bids, but will that be the end of the saga?

Chelsea

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Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso, asked if Enzo Fernandez will still be a Blues player on deadline day:

"Enzo is a Chelsea player, a top, top player. He's training really well, he started ten days ago with the team, very integrated. We are happy with him and he is getting ready for Monday."

Asked whether Fernandez has told him he wants to stay:

"He's training really well and I see him with a good attitude and that's what we want. He's trying his best to prepare for the kick off of the Premier League."

Chelsea

That's all from Mikel Arteta, so let's shift our focus across London.

New Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso earlier spoke to the media, ahead of his debut as a Premier League coach against Fulham on Monday night.

And he also spoke about the future of key midfielder and subject of much transfer rumour, Enzo Fernandez...

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on Riccardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapie: "Well, every player has very specific qualities. Ricky has a part of those qualities. He has a special energy, a special aura around him that makes him different.

"But he brings that but Piero is extraordinary everything that he does with very different qualities and what I want is Ricardo is Ricardo and Piero is Piero because with those two, we are much better. The way they complement each other their equalities that they offer and that's what we try to build around the squad."

Arsenal

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on Arsenal being the favourites to win the league: "It doesn't matter, our friend is not here today with the supercomputer and all the stuff that stuff that we normally have.

"I think our supercomputer, and what it has to drive us, is the standards daily to be able to day by day earn the right to position ourselves there in a really strong way and to play, to perform and to connect with our people in the manner that we want.

"And if that's the case, I'm sure we're going to be very close and then the destiny will decide what happens."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on academy players and Myles Lewis-Skelly: "Certainly, I mean the players that have been raised in our system and they feel genuinely that love and that connection with the club, brings something else. There is no question about that.

"Now, we need to look after them in a really special way because there is a value that is very difficult to find. We want to protect those assets as much as possible, develop them and make them extremely important for the club.

On youth development and sending players on loan abroad: "I think those are individual cases and those players have to be ready as well to compete in the Premier League and to play regularly.

"The priority is to explore those plays and give them minutes. Yeah, you better agree that that's going to be the case and how many clubs, teams, managers in this league can guarantee that that's going to happen to a really young player that probably hasn't had exposure.

"If you find it, great, because that's the level that we want them to compete, but sometimes they need a different pathway. The beauty of this is that the pathway can be completely different and the outcome can be the same, at least the magic of football as well."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on whether he feels there is a target on his back now: "Today, no, because we start from scratch, from zero.

"Tomorrow, we're going to have to prove we have the level to go back to that position again, but having that happened in the last three seasons.

"At some point, we were first, some of the times we were chasing it, and you never know what is better.

"If you give me the choice. I want to be first, I want to be hunted, and I want to be in control of our future rather than depending on somebody else."

Arsenal

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on whether historically Arsenal have been a bad selling club: "It's not bad or good, it's what you have in relation to the option that you have to sell. Maybe we have been asserting it, depending on the level of the players that we have, the ability and their contracts and their will to go.

"A possible issue that you can face is that maybe you want to make certain decisions with certain players that they are happy, that they want to stay as well. So it's a lot of factors that have to be right when you have to sell a player but it's not as simple."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on Myles Lewis-Skelly: "100% [he will be an Arsenal player at the end of the window]."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on whether his idea of evolution involves wins by big margins: "The more dominant we are and the bigger the margins, the better.

"So in order to achieve that, we need to be much better in every department in order to achieve that.

"We need to have much better availability in the squad, that we had last year for long periods of the season, to be able to have those margins become bigger."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on Guimaraes' injury: "Let's see how it is. He is evolving really well. But let's see for tomorrow."

Arsenal

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Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on new signing Bruno Guimaraes and uplifting the team: "That is what the new signing brings. It is new energy, something to prove in front of them and competition and when you talk about players of that quality and leadership, what have they done since day one. I think it lifts a level of everybody."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on his ideal number of players in his squad: "It depends on the ability and the history of those players. I think there is a lot of factors that count.

"22 outfield players and three goalkeepers of what is enough, or maybe you know more.

"You need to understand what happened in the previous season, the injury record of those players, the versatility of certain players. But I'm sure we're going to hit the right number to have a bit of competition with the right level of cooperation in the team and everybody feeling important."

Arsenal

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta on team news: " [Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice] are ready to be involved. [Jurrien Timber] I'd say in the next few weeks, he is not training with the group yet."