Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso has celebrated the club's new defensive signing Maxence Lacroix as a true winner’s attitude and competitive character and a leader who is a very good fighter as a player, with a player and a character that he is. The French international was officially unveiled on Thursday after a big move was completed from Crystal Palace to Stamford Bridge for 52 million pounds (US$70 million) and was signed by the Blues for a six-year contract for which Lacroix will instantly be part of the Blues when he arrives and will be able to work with his new teammates so well as the team gets ready for a tough pre-season ahead of the upcoming season.
Alonso, who was feted across Europe as a great tactical expert and one of the best tactical minds in the game of football in his time at Bayer Leverkusen, said on Friday from Sydney on Chelsea’s pre-season tour of the club, that he has been tracking Lacroix all along his career when it came to the defender's development and adaptation into the high-intensity Premier League has been fantastic. Besides his skills on the pitch and technical ability in football, the manager also said Lacroix's personality, good tactical awareness and reliability on the pitch, the right sort of leadership and defensive ability to play for the club and therefore his hard work and solidity and he is confident that Lacroix will be at the very heart of the Chelsea back line in the near future as well and with him in the future.
Lacroix brings a wealth of elite-level experience to West London and has made 98 official appearances for Crystal Palace since joining from Wolfsburg in 2024. A Premier League-winning player in Selhurst Park with the center-back in the FA Cup, UEFA Conference League and Community Shield in his glittering career. Lacroix is a mature person, a strong personality, an absolute fighter and a fighter for winning the game, and so is the manager. He is a man who truly loves the art of defending, and he was very willing to help Chelsea bounce back from a 10th place Premier League result last season.
Lacroix expressed great pride in joining the club, and said that the first meeting with Alonso showed how they were in agreement with their mutual goals and vision for the team in the future. The defender, who has seven caps for the French national team and represented his country at the recent World Cup, said they have a mutual ambition of winning silverware together. Lacroix's arrival was part of Chelsea's concerted summer recruitment campaign, with a British record 117 million pounds deal for Aston Villa forward Morgan Rogers and 47 million pounds for Atalanta right-back Marco Palestra, with previous deals Geovany Quenda and Emmanuel Emegha set up to take the Blues back up to the league.
