Marc Cucurella has already spoken with Xabi Alonso, and the Chelsea defender said the incoming manager left him with a strong sense of confidence. That matters now because Cucurella is being linked more and more with a summer departure from Chelsea, even as the club prepares for a new era under Alonso.
The comments give fresh weight to a question that has been hanging over his future. Barcelona and Atlético Madrid are reported to be keen on Cucurella, and he has admitted an interest in returning to Spain, which has kept the speculation alive around a player who has been central to Chelsea’s recent plans.
Cucurella did not frame the conversation as a negotiation, but he made clear that the contact went beyond courtesy. He said Alonso had inspired a lot of confidence in him, and that he had also spoken with Alejandro Grimaldo and Borja Iglesias, who know the coach well and spoke highly of him. That is the kind of detail that usually carries more weight than general praise because it suggests the player has already started to think about how the manager sees him.
There is still a catch. Cucurella’s future is being discussed at the same time as Alonso’s arrival, but the fit depends on what shape Chelsea choose to play. Under Enzo Maresca, Cucurella often operated as an inverted attacking midfielder, while Alonso used a 3-4-3 formation at Bayer Leverkusen, where his side won the title in the 2023-24 season. That difference is not a minor detail; it is the line between a player being pushed forward into space and being asked to hold a wider defensive role.
That is why the next step is less about whether Alonso rates Cucurella and more about where the coach sees him in the system. Cucurella has also publicly criticized the Chelsea regime after Maresca’s departure, so his standing at Stamford Bridge is already complicated. For now, the Spanish defender appears to be sitting between two realities at once: a manager who has just reassured him and a transfer market that keeps pulling him back toward Spain.
