Xabi Alonso is about to take the post-match press conference following Chelsea’s thrilling pre-season friendly victory over Western Sydney Wanderers at the Accor Stadium
Hello and welcome to football.london for live updates from Xabi Alonso’s post-match press conference after Chelsea’s extraordinary 6-4 victory over Western Sydney Wanderers in Sydney.
Alonso’s team got the ball rolling early on when new signing Dastan Satpayev smashed the ball into the top corner after being played in by a wonderful Ryan Kavuma-McQueen pass. The Australian side were not behind for too long when Anthony Pantazopoulos headed in from a corner to level the score in Sydney.
Wanderers then took the lead through a fine Aydan Hammond finish into the bottom corner after some individual skill. Dario Essugo levelled the friendly before the half-time whistle after some intricate link-up play with Reggie Walsh.
The second half proved to be even more of a thriller. Dylan Scicluna scored, Jamie Gittens levelled, Awan Lual netted, Joao Pedro levelled. And then Joao Pedro went and won the game for Chelsea with a nine-minute hat-trick late on for the west Londoners.
What did Alonso make of all of that? Bobby Vincent is live in Australia to bring you word-for-word updates from Alonso.
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That’s all
A full transcript will be online shortly.
Why didn’t Lavia come on?
He felt something in the hamstring. Not a big thing. We are expecting him to be fit for Saturday, hopefully.
Welbeck memories? Played against him
Many rumours at the moment.
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Welbeck and Henderson interest – need more experience?
I’m sure that there will be lots of things, rumours, it’s going to be a hard task but for sure we need proper balance in terms of qualities, positions, balance – we want to have a good squad and make a great team.
Delap’s future
Liam is doing well. It was 60 minutes he had a battle against the centre backs. He is doing well. He’s got a good desire.
Joao Pedro hat-trick
Very hungry. Joao is really, really determined to have a great season. After a great season, he wants to keep scoring more and more. We need to help him. The players around him also need a hunger to score – it’s not just about the striker. When we win and our striker scores, we are happy.
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A thrilling match
It has been a useful friendly, we can learn from it. There were moments we were struggling for solutions, we need to correct that. Our game-management, we can learn from today. They were pressing high and we need to find solutions. It will happen often in all the games. The more situations we have like this, the better it is for us to find the solutions. It’s going to be useful for the future, minutes for everyone, no injuries.
Alonso has arrived
The Chelsea manager is with us. Live updates to follow…
Player ratings
There were some standout performers for Chelsea this evening – with the obvious stealing the show. There were some not-so-good displays as well, as Bobby Vincent discusses here.
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – JULY 28: Joao Pedro of Chelsea celebrates scoring his team’s fourth goal during the Sydney Super Cup match between Western Sydney Wanderers and Chelsea FC at Accor Stadium on July 28, 2026 in Sydney, Australia. (Photo by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images)
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Welcome
That was something, wasn’t it? A proper pre-season friendly.
It ended Chelsea 6-4 Western Sydney Wanderers. We will try and make some sense of it with Xabi Alonso shortly.
Live updates from the Blues manager’s press conference to come…
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