By Paul Green at Stamford Bridge
XABI Alonso is confident everyone at Chelsea will benefit from Emiliano Martinez’s World Cup winning experience in the years ahead.
The goalkeeper, who turns 34 this week, landed a £7.5million move to Stamford Bridge from Aston Villa on a three-year deal in time to make a memorable debut in Sunday’s 4-3 win over Brighton & Hove Albion at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues raced 3-0 ahead after 32 minutes thanks to goals from Romeo Lavia, Pedro Neto and Joao Pedro.
The 2022 World Cup Golden Glove winner initially thwarted Charalampos Kostoulas ten minutes before the break, only for the Argentine to be beaten by Malick Yalcouye’s follow-up strike.
Joao Pedro had the unfortunate distinction of scoring at both ends after applying an unwanted touch on Pascal Gross’s attempt in the 63rd minute.
Cole Palmer’s long-range drive eleven minutes later made it 4-2 before Gross’s consolation six minutes into added-time.
It is back-to-back Premier League wins for Alonso and a winning first start for Martinez.
The boss said: “With him, he is a World Cup winner, he is 34 years old, experienced all around.
“I spoke with him [on Saturday]. We talked about the game, about our team and he felt ready, so I don’t have to tell him many things about [how] to perform.
“Even today, for sure every keeper wants to have a clean sheet, but I am happy with his first impact.
“He has only been in the building for 48 hours so now we will have the whole week to prepare for the next one.
“Day by day we will feel his presence because he has this charisma, this aura to influence and to have a very positive connection with the rest of the team.”
The victory over the Seagulls was overshadowed when substitute Moises Caicedo was forced off injured just fourteen minutes after coming off the bench to replace Neto. Argentina international Valentin Barco replaced Caicedo.
“Hopefully it was not new and it wasn’t more [serious] than last time,” Alonso said.
“He was cautious to stop to say his feeling was not the best, but we need to assess it during the week.”
Chelsea only had 26 per cent possession against Brighton after having 38 per cent of the ball in their opening-day 3-2 win at Fulham. But Alonso doesn’t believe anything should be read into these figures.
He explained: “For me, you need to have context to every bit of data.
“After 30 minutes we have scored 3-0, but in that moment we have played too much with [protecting] the result instead of keep playing, so the data is not important, it is how you play and what we can do better.
“But it is never that approach.
“I do not say today we need to have 60 per cent or 20 per cent, I never talk about those things.
“It is about how to prepare, how to be more competitive, but the good thing is that you need to adapt during the game.
“There are different moments and in some of them we have done really well, in others that we can do better.”
Alonso added: “I want to win – whatever it takes to win. Each game can be different, so we need to prepare for the best, we need to train for the best and be prepared for whatever scenario we have.
“It is not that it is going to be replicated against Arsenal. Today was a big challenge and it was a big test. Next Sunday it is going to be a big one.
“We can continue focusing on the good things and correcting the other ones that we can do better.”
