Even by Chelsea’s standards, this is extraordinary. On December 12, Enzo Maresca was named Barclays Manager of the Month for November. Three weeks later, he is gone.
The speed of Maresca’s departure at Stamford Bridge is pretty shocking. It was only in late November that Maresca engineered one of the most impressive wins of his tenure — a 3-0 victory over Barcelona in the Champions League. Five days later and Chelsea sent out a statement that they might be title contenders by securing a 1-1 draw with Arsenal, despite being down to 10 men for nearly an hour due to Moises Caicedo’s first-half red card. They were third in the Premier League, just six points behind their London rivals. Now they are a further nine points off the league leaders and making another change in the dugout.
A detailed look at where it all went wrong will naturally soon follow on The Athletic, but regardless of the why, this is a situation that was not in Chelsea’s plans and could have major ramifications for their season. This month alone, they have nine games in all four competitions, and confidence is already low after a run of two wins from their previous nine fixtures.
Chelsea had always intended to review how the club was progressing, including Maresca’s performance, at the end of the season, his second in charge. This was still the case earlier this week. For the Italian to go with so much left to play for emphasises the extent to which things have broken down. There were another three and a half years left on his contract, plus an option for it to be extended by a further 12 months.
From the moment he revealed out of the blue that he had just experienced the worst 48 hours of his Chelsea career following a 2-0 win over Everton on December 13, it was abundantly clear that all was not well at Stamford Bridge. The Athletic then broke the story that he was on Manchester City’s wishlist should Pep Guardiola depart at the end of the season. Not even Maresca’s insistence to fans that he would definitely still be at the helm for 2026-27 could ease the scrutiny.
Maresca greets Chelsea fans before December’s match against Aston Villa (Luke Walker/Getty Images)
Since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium bought the club in late May 2022, they have had six head coaches. The owners inherited Thomas Tuchel, but he was gone within four months. Graham Potter lasted seven months, Bruno Saltor had one game in temporary charge, interim Frank Lampard was given 11 matches, and Mauricio Pochettino one season. Maresca has stayed the longest, with him lasting over a year and a half and 92 games. He won the first two trophies of the post-Roman Abramovich era, the UEFA Conference League and FIFA Club World Cup in 2025, plus got them back into the Champions League after a two-year absence. Now Chelsea must turn to someone else.
Of course, it has to be regarded as far from ideal. Maresca’s replacement will inevitably have some different ideas and little time to implement them. The club are already guaranteed two games every week from now until February 10, limiting any new coach’s time on the training ground. However, the plan is to employ a coach that will fit with the system. The style of play will not change, nor will the structure above him.
You could never say the club’s fanbase really warmed to Maresca en masse. The final example of that came at the bitter end. Two weeks after supporters were singing his name at the Carabao Cup quarter-final win over Cardiff City, they were booing him and chanting ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ when Maresca substituted Cole Palmer during the 2-2 draw against Bournemouth, which turned out to be his final game.
There is now surely a good chance that the frustration felt in the stands that night will be redirected towards the club hierarchy, even if the latter feel Maresca is responsible for how things have soured.
Those with an optimistic disposition may draw parallels with when Tuchel replaced Lampard in January 2021. Chelsea recovered from the upheaval to win the Champions League that season. However, that squad was blessed with a lot more experience in Cesar Azpilicueta, N’Golo Kante, Antonio Rudiger, Jorginho, and Thiago Silva, making them well-placed to handle such disruption. Tuchel was also a proven manager at the highest level and had taken Paris Saint-Germain to the final the previous season.
Tuchel arrived at Chelsea mid-season, but with a very different squad (Darren Walsh/Getty Images)
Chelsea have no time to waste in terms of picking up the pieces, but this is where they will believe their structure of working does limit the damage. With the sporting leadership team in charge of recruitment, it means they have not been left with a squad full of players hand-picked by the manager and another coming in wanting different ones instead. The head coach is employed chiefly to do just that: coach the team, although Maresca was fully consulted on signings.
There is still plenty Chelsea can achieve. The club’s aim at the beginning of the season was to finish in the top four, as they did last year, and compete in the other three cup competitions they are participating in. Despite their terrible run of form lately, Chelsea still have the opportunity to do this and believe they can.
At the time of writing, they sit fifth in the Premier League with 19 games remaining to close the gap on the two sides immediately above them, Aston Villa and Liverpool. Their FA Cup campaign begins with a winnable third-round tie at Charlton Athletic next week, followed by the first leg of a Carabao Cup semi-final against Arsenal. They will go into that as underdogs, but Chelsea have saved their finest displays for the best opposition, as their recent performance against the north London side showed, as well as the win over PSG in the Club World Cup final. They must win their last two Champions League group games to have a hope of automatically qualifying for the last 16, yet even if they go into the play-off round as currently expected, the possibility of progressing remains.
With results and the team’s displays in decline, plus Maresca’s unhappiness increasingly clear for all to see, perhaps it is for the best that he has moved on now. Chelsea must do the same.