There was a moment during Enzo Maresca’s interview to become Chelsea’s head coach that stood out for his prospective new employers.
A noisy narrative was growing outside the club that after two years in charge the owners had assembled a bloated group of questionable quality that no manager could tame. But, according to someone familiar with the process, Maresca said during the meeting that he wanted the job because he loved the squad, that he was excited by its potential and the prospect of working with the players.
Maresca’s appointment, on 1 July, took many by surprise. Where plenty saw a coach who had been sacked by Parma after only six months in Italy’s Serie B, with only one good season winning the Championship with Leicester City and a gaping hole in the rest of his CV, the owners and co-sporting directors, Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, shared a different perspective.
They had intentionally decided against the tried-and-tested big names who have won trophies but left a trail of sackings in their wake. Mauricio Pochettino had been a divergence from the initial philosophy, first formulated after the takeover, of building a culture and growing with a coach, and they wanted to return to that path.
It was felt that, on reflection, while Graham Potter didn’t work out – sacked seven months into a five-year contract – he was actually the right coach at the wrong time, leading the team when major upheaval proved too great a challenge to overcome.
They drew up a clear profile of the coach they wanted: young, passionate, laser focused on coaching, a strong leader who played the right football on the upward curve of their career trajectory.
i understands the idea to speak to Maresca came from Joe Shields, the co-director of recruitment and talent who had spent nine years at Manchester City in the youth system where he had worked with Maresca when the Italian became manager of the elite development squad in August 2020.
Maresca, 44, was a coach on a similar arc to Chelsea in the post-Abramovich era – not the finished article, but on the way towards it. And in the interview they found a guy utterly dedicated to honing his craft, living for the job, distracted by nothing.
From watching his Leicester City team they already knew he played the style of football that fit with how they want Chelsea to play. That he had worked as Pep Guardiola’s assistant in Manchester City’s Treble-winning season was obviously appealing.
Maresca set out a clear vision of how he wanted Chelsea to play, sharing tangible ideas about how he would utilise players and the systems in which they fit. Chelsea wanted a modern head coach, who would have some input in recruitment but largely leave it to the vast team of staff already assembled and instead concentrate efforts on the team, and Maresca made clear he could fit into that system.
After all parties agreed he was the right choice, the deal was signed. Speaking to multiple sources across the club during the past fortnight, there is a sense bubbling away that he could coach the team into the next decade.
But reverse back to the summer, and when the appointment was first announced it did little to convince disillusioned Chelsea supporters that senior management had any clue what they were doing. Fans were jaded by two disruptive, chaotic seasons that culminated in the contentious sacking of Mauricio Pochettino, the star name who had guided them to two Wembley cup finals and qualified for Europe, albeit the Conference League.
“People were dubious about Maresca – thinking what’s he done in England?” recalls Tim Rolls, a season ticket holder of 30 years.
It’s been a remarkable, transformational first five months in charge. After 11 Premier League games, Chelsea are third in the table without anyone really noticing, playing thrilling attacking football, scoring goals (and conceding a few), holding their own against the league’s leading sides.
Internally, however, this has come as less of a surprise.
The decision to part ways with Pochettino had not been taken lightly: Winstanley and Stewart had compiled an extensive 18-page review into the season after its conclusion and recommended they needed to change direction.
Of course, nobody within the club is getting carried away at this stage – there is, for a start, an acceptance that this is a compellingly tight table and only four points separate Chelsea from Manchester United in 13th place. “We’re not that excited yet,” one Chelsea source tells i. “It’s been a hard stretch.”
But there had been belief that all the groundwork being laid off the field during the past couple of years would pave the way for the club to succeed on it.
They wanted to build a football club in which everywhere visitors looked had the gloss of elite exceptionalism. And after a poor, muddled first transfer window, i understands around 70 interviews were conducted to create a sporting structure.
From that recruitment drive came four key appointments: Winstanley, Stewart, Shields and Christopher Vivell, the technical director. Vivell lasted only a few months, and has recently joined Manchester United. Winstanley and Stewart were promoted to co-sporting directors. Shields has grown in prominence.
The owners wanted a complete overhaul of the club they bought from Roman Abramovich for upwards of £4bn in May 2022, focusing on lowering the age of players and wage bill while maintaining quality, and needed the right people to oversee it. A fresh culture, where the character of signings and appointments is as significant as ability.
The season before the takeover, Chelsea suffered the most injuries in the Premier League – a total of 97, and further analysis found they were losing 30-35 percent of the squad to injuries.
They poached Bryce Cavanagh from the Football Association – an Australian who developed a glowing reputation heading up performance, medicine and nutrition for the England team over seven years. Chelsea’s injury record has vastly improved.
Sam Jewell, one of the key figures alongside Winstanley in Brighton’s unrivalled transfer machine, joined in May this year. In September, Sachin Gupta left the NBA after 18 years as an executive masterminding data, analytics and strategy to turn his attention to Chelsea.
It was felt that the Stamford Bridge pitch was one of the worst in the Premier League, so Stewart sourced a world-leading groundsman to sort it out, bringing in Paul Burgess from AS Monaco, who possesses unparalleled expertise in pitches and had worked at Arsenal for 12 years and Real Madrid for 11.
It is those blades of detail that make the difference. Each individual contributing to the cause. i was told that Stewart should be credited with signing Malo Gusto, Winstanley the successful pursuit of Moises Caicedo.
There is conviction that the pain of the last few years can set the club up to be a dominant force at the top the game once again, regularly challenging for the Premier League title and a serious contender in the Champions League, for years to come. All the decisions, especially the hard ones, like sacking Pochettino, have been geared towards that ambition.
“The sporting team has a chance to be here with Enzo for the rest of the decade and beyond,” a senior source said. “Everyone’s got to do their part, work hard, be a team player. Results are the outcome of talent and work ethic and character.
“The football philosophy and style of play, it’s been built so if any one person is hit by a bus you can continue and still be successful. We don’t anticipate changing that. Enzo is at the right time of his career with the right people to be here a very long time.”
‘We’ve got something special there’
When one player’s name is read out by the stadium announcer and boomed around all sides of Stamford Bridge, and when the player has the ball at his feet, it induces a spine-tingling atmosphere that has only bewitched the stadium every so often over the last 50 years.
Rolls, who attended his first Chelsea game in 1967, says that Eden Hazard had that effect in the 2010s, as did Gianfranco Zola in the late 1990s; going back further there was Pat Nevin, in the 1980s, and Charlie Cook, in the 1960s and 70s. “Cole Palmer is on that level, that quality of footballer,” he says.
“It’s early days, but you do feel we’ve got something special there.”
Palmer is the embodiment of everything that has gone right at Chelsea: a brilliant bit of recruitment, a young talent signed at a great price secured to a long-term contract, an academy product pinched from Manchester City around which a dynasty can be built.
But where Palmer exploded into the Premier League last season playing on the wing, being voted young player of the season by his peers, Maresca made the bold decision to shift him to the middle.
The move has been rewarded with more of Palmer’s nonchalant brilliance, producing stunning goals and passes that deserve to be framed and hung in art galleries.
With Noni Madueke getting fans in the mood with his dribbling, the diligence and skill of Pedro Neto, the pace and directness of Nicolas Jackson, it is combining for pure entertainment. Maresca has worked particularly hard in training to give Jackson a sharper edge to his finishing to complement his other attributes, and the striker scored six goals in his first 12 games.
“He’s made players better,” a Chelsea source says. “He’s an intensely hard worker. You look at why Pep’s successful. He’s probably the hardest working coach in football even after all the success he’s had.”
That attack is supported by the midfield base of Caicedo and Romeo Lavia. “We’ve had a couple of seasons where we’ve just passed sideways and now we’re going for the jugular,” Rolls says.
There is, he explains, a buzz in the air when fans stream out of Stamford Bridge after games that carries into the packed tubes taking them away from the stadium.
“There were times last season and after Thomas Tuchel went and we had Potter and then Frank Lampard, it was awful,” Rolls adds. “To have gone from that to this is incredible. I thought they were wrong to get rid of Pochettino but maybe they weren’t.
“The owners must be delighted. While we’re doing well, they’re not getting any flak. A few defeats in a row and there will be anti-Boehly chants at away games again but that’s not happening at all now.” Although he cautions: “Chelsea are always three games away from a crisis.”
When Maresca arrived, he inherited a squad of 42, but straight away whittled it down to a group of 22 and told others, including stars such as Raheem Sterling and Ben Chilwell, they were no longer required.
To accommodate the rest he has still had to pretty much run an A Team, in the Premier League, and a B Team in Europe.
In the petulant world of professional footballers, that shouldn’t really work. And the B Team has included Joao Felix, Mykhailo Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Christopher Nkunku – an astonishing, and expensive, array of talent.
Maresca has maintained a grip on egos by making clear, from the beginning, that if players don’t display the right attitude in training, they’re out.
Cutting Palmer from the Europa Conference League squad was an unusual call, but keeps him fresh for the Premier League and the brutal two years ahead. With the inaugural Fifa Club World Cup next summer, Chelsea will potentially play around 75 games by mid-July, and i understands they have been approaching this as two seasons in one. Explaining this to the players has softened blows.
Altering the age profile is working: the average age of the squad is 24 – the youngest Chelsea have had in the Premier League, and they have fielded the youngest starting XI in the league this season.
The unprecedented approach of securing players to long contracts – some as long as nine years – has drawn criticism and scepticism. But the owners are convinced in the long-term this group of talented young footballers will grow into a dominant team together, and that those players who don’t work out can be sold.
They will never get all the decisions right. Almost two years after a £106m transfer, Enzo Fernandez “seems to be captain of the reserve side”, Rolls says, “which probably isn’t what he signed up for.”
On the flip side, however, Palmer’s astonishing progression triggered a pay-rise and a contract extension until 2033, by which time he will be 31. Intriguing ideas are starting to crystallise.
Next summer, plans are being formulated to delve into the transfer market to further improve the squad. Most of the work has been done, and there will be no overhaul like the last few windows, but they will keep tweaking.
It has been noted that Manchester City have built success by allowing time, chemistry and consistency to turn into trophies. The expectation is that Chelsea’s own alchemy can produce similar results.
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