Certain managers and coaches develop special relationships with particular players, partnerships which become intrinsic to success for both parties.
The greatest manager Sunderland never had, Brian Clough, forged a hugely influential bond with John McGovern, a player he initially encountered as a teenager in his first managerial post at Hartlepools United. Clough then took McGovern to Derby County where, together, they won the Second and First Division Championships.
After a short-lived and unhappy
spell for both at Leeds, McGovern followed Clough to Nottingham Forest where the midfield general skippered Clough’s teams to another First Division title, two League Cup wins and two European Cup victories.
Closer to home, it’s unlikely that Enzo Le Fée would’ve been persuaded to leave Roma for a Championship team were it not for the bond between him and Régis Le Bris, built during their time together at Lorient.
So, perhaps it was unsurprising that when Xabi Alonso surveyed the task ahead of him at Stamford Bridge, faced with undoing the shambles that he was inheriting from a plethora of previous coaches — Potter, Tuchel, Pochettino, Maresca and Rosenior, all in the space of five years — that his thoughts would turn to Granit Xhaka.
Xhaka was Alonso’s midfield general at Bayer Leverkusen during their all-conquering 2023/2024 season, where the club went on an unprecedented fifty one-game unbeaten streak to win the Bundesliga title and the DFB-Pokal.
Alonso considered Xhaka’s presence an on-pitch extension of his coaching staff, while Xhaka described playing under Alonso as “a dream”.
So, Chelsea’s attempt to reunite Xhaka with their new boss may be totally unwelcome on Wearside, but it would be more surprising if the Swiss international was not open to it.
The reality is that there’s been a significant gap in stature between the two clubs in the last thirty years, and being part of a renaissance in Chelsea’s fortunes would have the aim of Champions League qualification. That’s a very different level for a player who clearly has aspirations to remain in football when his playing career is over.
Capturing his signature for our Premier League campaign was genuinely a coup for Kyril Louis-Dreyfus and Xhaka was clearly the most influential signing of the season — despite being officially denied that accolade by Senne Lammens.
His influence at Sunderland also extends far beyond the first team.
Several players have spoken publicly about how he personally drove standards within the squad but some of the most telling examples came from the U21 players and coaches, and in October 2026, following the game against Anderlecht, Graeme Murty spoke to the Sunderland Echo about Xhaka’s presence at their matches.
Ben Middlemas, for example, Harrison Jones, can talk to Granit about certain situations and he’ll actually see what they’ve done, and he can challenge and he can question and we can do the same.
Other young players have also spoken about how much it meant to them that the first team captain knew them by name and would take time to talk with them around the Academy.
But, if the opportunity to reunite with a coach with whom he clearly has a special bond to, proves too much of a pull, he certainly does not deserve the bile and vitriol that has been directed towards him by some sections of our fanbase.
Being open to the possibility is very different to pushing for it, and there’s no evidence whatsoever that he’s been actively agitating for a move, a story which is being pushed by clickbait social media accounts.
Xhaka not only helped us secure our place in the Premier League for another season, he played a leading role in delivering European football for the first time in over fifty years. He’s been the epitome of professionalism, and it’ll be desperately disappointing if he isn’t around to lead us into Europe next season.
However, the appointment of Alonso at Chelsea has opened up an opportunity that he’s likely to find too tempting to resist in the final phase of his career. What we can expect is that Chelsea pay a fair price for a player who’ll undoubtedly be as influential across their whole club as he’s been for ours.
