The Italian left his job on Thursday after 18 months during which time he led the club back to the Champions League after a two-year absence as well as winning the Conference League and World Club Cup.<\/p>\n
However, it is understood his willingness to speak to City despite having three-and-a-half years of his contract to run, together with a more general deterioration in his relationship with the club, brought matters to a head and led to a parting of ways.<\/p>\n
The feeling at Chelsea is that their former head coach showed a lack of respect in speaking to City, who could be looking for a new boss this summer if as reported Guardiola chooses to step down, particularly following the gamble the club took in hiring Maresca directly from Leicester of the Championship.<\/p>\n
It is also understood that Maresca\u2019s reluctance to heed the advice of medical staff in regards to team selections, potentially risking the fitness of players who had recently returned from injury, also played a significant part in making his situation untenable.<\/p>\n
![\"Enzo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/00234418-614.jpg\"\/)
\nMaresca led Chelsea to two trophies last season<\/p>\n
It was this, and not a wider disagreement with the sporting directors, that was at the core of the issue when Maresca talked about his “worst 48 hours” at the club and not being supported internally following the win over Everton on 13 December.<\/p>\n
The Italian\u2019s refusal to clarify that his comments were aimed at the medical staff led to intense speculation that he was taking aim at the club\u2019s hierarchy, further muddying the waters and placing the relationship in a state of terminal decline.<\/p>\n
A number of players during Maresca\u2019s tenure have had their game time carefully managed, most notably Reece James and Cole Palmer, with problems relating to repeated injuries meaning the club have been highly cautious about overloading players.<\/p>\n
Maresca was booed by supporters at Stamford Bridge during Tuesday\u2019s 2-2 draw with Bournemouth \u2013 his final match in charge \u2013 when he substituted Palmer in the final half hour.<\/p>\n
It is also understood that suggestions Maresca was excluded from decisions surrounding recruitment, which is led by a five-strong team headed by co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, are wide of the mark, with no acquisitions sanctioned without the head coach\u2019s green light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liam Rosenior, the head coach of French club Strasbourg, who are owned by Chelsea’s parent company BlueCo, has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-223119","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\/223119","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=223119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}