{"id":221702,"date":"2026-01-01T13:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221702\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T13:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T13:19:09","slug":"enzo-maresca-chelsea-manager-leaves-with-blues-fifth-in-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/221702\/","title":{"rendered":"Enzo Maresca: Chelsea manager leaves with Blues fifth in Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maresca stunned even members of his own staff when – after beating Everton<\/a> 2-0 for Chelsea<\/a>‘s solitary Premier League win in December – he said “many people” had made it his “worst 48 hours” since joining the club.<\/a><\/p>\n

Those comments came without any warning to club staff or senior management, who would have preferred any discussions to remain private.<\/p>\n

But friction had been brewing in the months before that.<\/p>\n

Maresca had hoped to raise his profile following the Blues’ successes through opportunities outside the club. He was planning to publish a book before being blocked, and spoke at Il Festival dello Sport – an event in Italy organised by La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper – without the club’s permission.<\/p>\n

He also made public that he disagreed with the club<\/a> not signing a central defender after Levi Colwill injured his anterior cruciate ligament in pre-season. The club’s hierarchy explained that doing so could prompt academy prospect Josh Acheampong to request a transfer, which ultimately led Maresca to back down.<\/p>\n

The former Leicester manager has also switched agents – from the Wasserman agency to Jorge Mendes – and has been talked of as a potential successor to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City<\/a>, which Maresca has dismissed.<\/p>\n

In addition, he has increasingly avoided wearing club tracksuits – opting instead for his own clothing.<\/p>\n

Following his last game with Chelsea<\/a> – a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth<\/a> on 30 December – assistant manager Willy Caballero said Maresca felt too unwell to do his post-match media duties, but it is understood his absence was more due to him considering his next steps.<\/p>\n

It was noticeable that when Chelsea<\/a> posted a 52-second video on social media on New Year’s Eve summarising their year, there was no trace of Maresca.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maresca stunned even members of his own staff when – after beating Everton 2-0 for Chelsea‘s solitary Premier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-221702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}