Chelsea hosted Portsmouth at their Cobham training base on Saturday 3 October, a game arranged to give players minutes during the international break and never meant to leave the complex. The 2-0 scoreline leaked anyway, and the pile-on followed within hours.
Portsmouth, a Championship side under John Mousinho, used the fixture to sharpen players before a run of league games. Chelsea, with much of the first team away on international duty, treated the ninety minutes as a training exercise, working through recovery minutes, defensive drills and run-outs for younger players.
Chelsea supporters online were not in a mood for nuance. Posts across X and Instagram picked up quickly, with sections of the fanbase calling for Xabi Alonso to be sacked just three months into his tenure. The match was played without a crowd in the ground, so the backlash lived entirely on timelines.
The league table is doing the shouting
The reaction only makes sense set against the Premier League standings. Alonso’s side sit tenth after five matches, with wins over Fulham and Brighton, defeats to Arsenal and Brentford and a draw against Hull City. They have conceded twelve goals in those five fixtures and have not kept a league clean sheet, with the only shutout coming against Luton Town in the Carabao Cup.
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Alonso signed a four-year deal to begin on 1 July 2026, and his appointment was pitched as the next statement hire at Stamford Bridge. A friendly result against a Championship side would normally pass without comment. Lose it after five league games of conceding in every one, and the loose cannons start firing.
What Alonso was actually doing with the ninety minutes
Football365’s Mediawatch column argued the defeat should not be judged like a competitive fixture and criticised the Daily Express for framing Alonso as “red-faced” over what was essentially a training exercise.
The Chelsea manager had three priorities for the Portsmouth fixture, none of them the scoreline: recovery minutes for players returning from injury, more work on the defensive shape that has cost his side every weekend, and time on the pitch for emerging academy names. Portsmouth’s two goals against a mixed-strength Chelsea XI did not help the first two objectives.
Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge on Saturday
Chelsea return to competitive football on Saturday 10 October against AFC Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge, the opening fixture of a five-game October run that also sends Alonso’s side to Tottenham and Liverpool.
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