Who will be next Chelsea manager? Five potential candidates including Spanish stars, former Blues and more

Chelsea's criteria would be tough to achieve in the best of times. Next season may not be that. The decision to sack Rosenior after Tuesday's loss at Brighton and Hove Albion reflected a faint hope that there might still be a path to Champions League qualification, one that would presumably require Aston Villa dropping to fifth and winning the Europa League, opening up a spot for sixth place, which the Blues are currently two points off. The FA Cup offers another opportunity to salvage the season, one handed to Calum McFarlane.

Whatever the Under 21s boss achieves over the remainder of the season, the man who takes the Stamford Bridge dugout on a permanent basis in the summer will have his work cut out. Here are some of those who might land the gig:

1. Andoni Iraola

The outgoing Bournemouth manager ticks an awful lot of the boxes Chelsea might realistically have for their next head coach and Andoni Iraola is understood to have had his admirers at Stamford Bridge when the vacancy has previously been available. Iraola's first two seasons in England delivered finishes of 12th and ninth and he looks like bettering that this season with a younger squad that ought to have been set back by the losses of four starting defensive players and Antoine Semenyo.

At the Vitality Stadium, Iraola has shown an ability to develop outstanding young prospects. Even if Chelsea are gravitating towards a more experienced squad profile, there are going to be talents in there who need developing. Iraola has proven he can adapt to the needs of his players, too, abandoning some of the philosophy he imported from Rayo Vallecano when he saw what was required to turn Bournemouth into an up-and-down, pressing machine.

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If you can look past the absence of major silverware -- with all due respect to the Cypriot Super Cup -- and his inexperience under the glare of a big club, Iraola looks an extremely compelling candidate. The slight problem? There is another job that might tempt him more. Ernesto Valverde has announced that he is stepping down as head coach of Athletic Club, the team who he spent nearly a quarter of a century associated with and for whom he played over 500 games. Would a return to the Basque Country tempt Iraola and his family more than a vacancy at Chelsea that anyone would have to assume does not come with job security?

2. Cesc Fabregas

A two-time Premier League champion beloved by Stamford Bridge, Cesc Fabregas knows what a winning Chelsea organization looks like. That is as good a starting place as any for a club who really do need to get back in touch with their identity if they are to win back their fanbase. Fabregas spent the final years of his playing career voraciously expanding his coaching knowledge and his two and a half years at Como, who might yet qualify for the Champions League, suggests he has learned all the right tricks.

Learning is the operative word, though. These are early days for Fabregas. Maybe he is the next Mikel Arteta or Xabi Alonso, a coach who can parlay their experience in top dressing rooms into becoming the charismatic leader who bends a club to his will. Plenty have tried to do that, however, and it takes more than just one magnetic figure. It takes a club that has the right structure and a blend of personalities that just clicks. It might also take a stomach for bottoming out, which in itself means an acknowledgement that Chelsea might not have done that just yet.

3. Xabi Alonso

Here is the coach that any member of the elite should seriously be eyeing. Xabi Alonso has won leagues at a competitive disadvantage, has the gravitas to cut through a dressing room and has proven himself to be tactically adept across multiple jobs. He may not have set the world alight at Real Madrid but how many of those issues were to do with the extremely effective football he wanted to play and how many were to do with a dressing room that bends to the will of no coach?

[As Xabi Alonso follows Ruben Amorim and Enzo Maresca out the door, what does the future hold for managers?

James Benge

Really, the issue here is less what appeal Alonso holds for Chelsea than vice versa. Even after his swift sacking at Real Madrid, sources in the game do not doubt that the 44-year-old would be in the running for the biggest vacancies. That might not be a Champions League-less Chelsea. Alonso has long seemed like a manager whose time would come at Liverpool and Bayern Munich, and although neither job currently looks like being available this summer, he would be well advised to take his time to assess his options.

For instance, what happens if Pep Guardiola ups sticks from Manchester City this summer? Alonso could either take a swing at being the next guy at the Etihad Stadium or wait on whatever move Bayern Munich boss Vincent Kompany, a legend in the north west, might make. As for the Chelsea vacancy, it might make sense if he has a lingering urge to get back into work at the earliest possible opportunity, but going from the frying pan to the fire might be a more preferable set of working conditions than swapping the Santiago Bernabeu for Stamford Bridge.

4. Marco Silva

There are a few other Premier League options who occupy a similar sphere to Iraola. No one can question whether Marco Silva, Oliver Glasner or even Regis Le Bris have done enough to take a step up in stature. It's just, would you be absolutely certain they could make the grade? Of the aforementioned trio, Silva is the most intriguing, not least because he is out of contract at the end of the season. The 48-year-old has been at this a while too, first arriving in the Premier League in 2017 as he fought in vain to keep Hull City in the Premier League.

The last attempt at a step up rather backfired with Silva lasting 18 months at Everton post-Watford. Since then, he has done what few before him could and established Fulham as a Premier League outfit that doesn't have to worry about relegation, goes deep in the cups and plays an attractive brand of football. If Chelsea are not tempted, there will be plenty of others who take a long, hard look at Silva.

5. Filipe Luis

Another former Chelsea player and one who is understood to have been sounded out over the job in the past, Filipe Luis left Flamengo last month with a string of titles to his name, including the Libertadores and Brazil's Serie A. Filipe Luis certainly will have impressed the Chelsea hierarchy with his side's 3-1 win over the Blues in the Club World Cup last summer, a tournament where the Brazilians pushed Bayern Munich close before exiting at the round of 16.

The fact that the 40-year-old does not have his UEFA Pro Licence would, however, be a complicating factor, albeit one that Chelsea could start to address in the summer if there was a will to bring him in. "I am ambitious with my work. I always want to go far in whatever it is I'm doing," Filipe Luis has said of his playing style. "I'm very dedicated in that sense, I work long hours and I have a clear objective in my life. I won't stop until I've exhausted all the options available to me."