The Xabi Alonso Leeds United verdict delivered at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday night was not a gloat. Chelsea’s head coach had just watched his side score six after the break to beat the Whites 6-3 in the Carabao Cup third round, and the first thing he did was shoulder the blame for the 45 minutes before it — the 45 minutes in which Daniel Farke’s rotated Leeds side had been comfortably the better team.
The Xabi Alonso Leeds United verdict: ‘no player is to blame’
Speaking after the tie and carried by the Yorkshire Evening Post, Alonso was blunt about a first half his heavily changed team had lost. “For sure, I take responsibility for all of them,” he said. “No, no player is to blame, it is the decisions that we took. For sure, in the first half things were not going the way we wanted.”
He put the problem down to preparation rather than personnel. “When you haven’t had time, and when you don’t have this time to work with them, it’s difficult to compete at this level, so it’s my responsibility,” Alonso continued. “We had to take decisions at half-time, and we have seen another second half with more quality, more tempo, and we need to analyse.”
Then the balance, from a manager whose side had just put six past a Premier League opponent: “But happy that we are going through, happy with the reaction, but as well analytical about what we have done.”
An hour that vindicated Farke’s eight changes
Alonso made 10 changes for the third round. Farke made eight, handing first Leeds appearances to goalkeeper Michael Zetterer and loan left-back Melvin Bard, and for an hour it was the visitors who looked like the side that had trained together.
Tarik Muharemovic rose at the back post to head in Harry Wilson’s corner — a performance we called the standout of the night — and three minutes after the restart Brenden Aaronson turned in Ethan Ampadu’s cross to make it 2-0. Leeds had arrived in west London unbeaten in all four competitive games this season. At 2-0 up after 48 minutes, that record looked in no danger at all.
Four substitutes and twelve minutes
Alonso’s answer was to empty his bench at the interval, sending on Reece James, Pedro Neto, Morgan Rogers and Cole Palmer in one go. Referee Jarred Gillett awarded Chelsea a penalty for a Daniel James challenge, Palmer converted, and the substitute added a second within two minutes. Four home goals arrived inside 12 minutes and six across the second half; Dominic Calvert-Lewin briefly made it 4-3 before Chelsea scored twice more. Our breakdown of those 12 minutes is here, and the full report on the 6-3 defeat sits here.
The YEP’s own reading was that Chelsea will have questions to ask of the fringe players who could not live with a rotated Leeds side before the interval. Alonso, pointedly, refused to ask them in public.
What the verdict is actually worth to Leeds
Nothing in the result, obviously. Chelsea are in the last 16 and Leeds are not, and the route into Europe Farke had publicly targeted has shut with it. Six conceded in a single evening, by a defence that had shipped only twice in four competitive matches before Wednesday, is not something an opposition manager’s manners can soften.
But it is worth something as evidence. An elite side needed 10 changes reversed, four international substitutes and a penalty to get past a Leeds team missing most of its first-choice XI, and the man who beat them spent his post-match saying his own decisions were the reason it took that long. Leeds still have five points from three Premier League games, still have a 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest in the bank, and still face Crystal Palace at Elland Road once the rearranged fixture comes round.
The scoreline says the gap between the sides is enormous. Alonso spent his evening explaining that, for an hour, it wasn’t.
