Xabi Alonso must get Chelsea into the Champions League – but probably won’t get fired if he doesn’t manage it.

It’s the international break, so there’s not a lot of Chelsea chat going around. The players are all in their national team camps, but games don’t start until tonight.

That made it a good time for a general Chelsea Q and A, which is just what Bobby Vincent of Football.London has done.

It’s a sign of the mood in general, on the back of a defeat to Sunderland last weekend, that questions were asked about what new manager Xabi Alonso’s target for the season were, and what it would take for him to get sacked.

Alonso’s aims are clear – but he can miss them and not be sacked

“Chelsea want Champions League football again with a top-four/five finish,” Vincent said.

“If Xabi Alonso can’t achieve that, though, it seems unlikely he’d lose his job. Unless, of course, there was a complete capitulation. Chelsea, though, are confident they can achieve their goals this season.”

Let’s all calm down and start doing what managers always say to do – take things game by game and start worrying about individual results rather than the big picture just yet. There’s a tasty run of fixtures after this break with some winnable games and some tough ones for us to test our level.

In other news…

Emi Martinez has given some details on the surgery he had which makes it clear his return to full health could take a while.

Moises Caicedo is already feeling “tired”, according to an interview done while on international duty.

Chelsea’s bad injury news goes on with a young defender now pulling out of his national team duty.