Copy linkFacebookXPinterestEmailShare this article 0Join the conversationFollow usAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleNewsletterSubscribe to our newsletterFulham will start the new Premier League season by having the neighbours round. The first Monday Night Football of 2026-27 takes Chelsea down the road to Craven Cottage, where theyll play in a derby that will do little to indicate whats to come for either team in the next nine months.Chelsea have more tangible targets than local bragging rights in a rivalry so cosmopolitan that local doesnt mean much anyway. Theyve been going after those goals like they mean it, up to and including a British transfer record move for the hottest property in English football.Morgan Rogers has linked up at Stamford Bridge with Xabi Alonso, the Blues new manager and the man on the end of the pointed backing of the club hierarchy. Alonso wont have to deal with European football this season. He will have to deliver it, however.Managers united in Madrid miseryThe 44-year-old officially succeeded Carlo Ancelotti as Real Madrid boss two weeks after leaving German Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen, where his success was generational and indisputable.Alonso lasted six months back at the Bernabeu, winning 24 of his 32 matches in charge and leaving by mutual consent in January. Real Madrid were four points behind leaders Barcelona with exactly half a season to play but the managers race had been run. You may like Can Xabi Alonso turn the Premier League's greatest financial underachievers into champions? Chelsea 2026-2027 season preview Fulham are a side edging closer to domestic success and European qualification, but can new boss Alvaro Arbeloa get them over the line? Fulham 2026-27 season preview Fulham strike stunning double deal with Real Madrid: report Pick the ultimate 4-4-2 line-up from players in FourFourTwo's definitive Top 100 ListThe outgoing gaffer was succeeded from within by Real Madrid B manager Alvaro Arbeloa. He was replacing the man with whom he had played as a teammate more than any other.After his 19 league matches in charge, he too had collected four points fewer than Barcelona. Arbeloa stood down at the end of the season and finds Alonso in the away dugout for his first Premier League match as the manager of Fulham.Get FourFourTwo NewsletterThe best features, fun and footballing quizzes, straight to your inbox every week.Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.Unlike Alonsos, Arbeloas Real Madrid departure had been in the works for a while. Question marks over their performances in big matches that marred his half-season in the hot seat were far from baseless.There were reports of tensions in the dressing room that came to a head when Federico Valverde clashed with Aurielien Tchouameni, and Antonio Rudiger apparently opted for the physical method to express his opinion to Alvaro Carreras.The scepticism of Bernabu kingmaker Kylian Mbappe made Arbeloas demise inevitable despite his own standing within the club. What to read next Xabi Alonso frustrated by Chelsea blow as transfer decision made Jose Mourinho has one job at Real Madrid, and thats to usurp Barcelona either you win, or youre losers and its a disaster. Itll be fireworks watching whether he can do it Former Bernabeu favourite assesses the new La Liga season Why Jose Mourinhos Real Madrid return is doomed to fail Mbappe was more positive about Alonso, but neither the former Leverkusen boss nor Alonso's old teammate got what theyd hoped for from their respective ascensions into the top job with the Spanish capital titans.When they press the flesh like Dillon and Dutch on the touchline at the Cottage tonight, Alonso and Arbeloa will have that in common. Real Madrid isnt a job that cuts slack. Its a Mourinho-sized role with Mourinho-sized ups and downs.Same tee, different pinsTheres no point in drawing conclusions about a manager after a few months spearheading footballs greatest basket case. Some managerial personalities can pull it off. Others, well, they cant. It doesnt say much about them either way.What separates the two who landed in West London this summer is the nature of their experience before they each spent six months as an egg in a cement mixer.Alonso, as a Bundesliga champion, double winner and invincible with Leverkusen, has proven himself up to a point. Arbeloa has not. In that sense, they have at least popped up at Chelsea and Fulham the right way round.Alonso has the chops and the more acute need to prove it. Fulham are embarking on life after Marco Silva and that comes with a very particular kind of pressure.Youngsters Gonzalo Garcia and Cesar Palacious followed Arbeloa from Real Madrid but doubts over whether the Cottagers have done enough to account for losing the direct impacts of Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez for nothing are entirely justified.19-year-old striker Jonah Kusi-Asare has joined from Bayern Munich and promising young midfielder Shea Charles has come in from Southampton, but selling Sasa Lukic and Issa Diop to promoted Ipswich Town could prove more significant than Fulham would like if they dont have their wits about them.Alonsos brief is a touch spikier. Chelsea dropped to a level they consider beneath them and are investing in bouncing back. Qualifying for the Champions League is the new managers minimum objective. He wont be there this time next year if he doesnt.Whether that would make Leverkusen rather than Real Madrid the Alonso anomaly would be for Chelsea fans to decide, and their Fulham counterparts will have their say on the early-career trajectory of Arbeloa too.Free of the Bernabu factor, untangled from the merciless mangle that is Real Madrid, 2026-27 will help define exactly what tier of manager these former colleagues are going to be.Their aims are different this season, but theyre starting at the same time, in the same game, under the same floodlights.TOPICSReal MadridChelseaFulhamPremier LeagueChris NeeChris is a Warwickshire-based freelance football writer specialising in West Midlands football, the Premier League, the EFL and the J.League. He is the author of the High Protein Beef Paste football newsletter and owner of Aston Villa Review. He supports Coventry Sphinx.
