Bonding & building - what we learned about Alonso's Chelsea in pre-season

Chelsea 's pre-season campaign was all about new manager Xabi Alonso but, in truth, the 56 hours spent travelling 24,561 miles by plane had been organised long before his appointment in May.

The Blues travelled further and longer than any other Premier League club, almost twice as much as during last season's US tour under former boss Enzo Maresca, visiting Sydney, Hong Kong and Jakarta before finishing in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia, on Sunday.

It was tiring for many, not least Alonso, but that did not stop him setting standards by running off the jetlag at a remarkable pace of four minutes 30 seconds per kilometre alongside members of the club staff.

It set the tone for a culture of not making excuses, as did his involvement in a staff match before the squad flew out.

The 44-year-old former Spain World Cup winner was on the winning side and set up most of the goals.

Having already completed a substantial amount of fitness work for his players at home, including gruelling double sessions at the club's Cobham training base in the weeks leading up to the tour, Chelsea used the trip to focus on key tactical elements despite the demands of travel and fatigue.

Chelsea had done plenty of work to mitigate those demands. As well as hiring a private Airbus A340, the club immediately switched players on to Sydney time and instructed them to sleep after meals during the journey, which included a stop at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake, Sri Lanka, before landing in Australia.

Training at Sky Park, home of Sydney FC, they had access to a compact but high-quality training facility, in addition to an open session at Allianz Stadium that was relatively low in intensity.