Chelsea is looking for Mauricio Pochettino’s replacement after the manager was fired on Tuesday night. Gianluca Di Marzio of Sky Sports reports that Enzo Maresca of Leicester City has emerged as the front-runner. This season, Maresca led Leicester to promotion and a quick return to the Premier League. Since the Foxes have produced great results while playing an engaging style, it is possible that numerous clubs have expressed interest in his enticing brand of football.
The relatively inexperienced manager has had an astonishingly successful career thus far, although he has not been in management for long since leaving Manchester City, where he trained under Pep Guardiola. According to Di Marzio, a reporter for Sky Sports, Maresca is now a strong candidate to replace Pochettino at Stamford Bridge. The youthful manager’s talents and tactical aptitude are apparently appreciated by the Blues. It’s known that his contract contains an £8.5 million release clause.
According to Italian reporter Fabrizio Romano, Chelsea is currently looking for a youthful manager to take over for Pochettino, and Maresca, who is 44 years old, seems to suit the bill. Although some supporters may be concerned about his lack of experience, there is no doubting his potential in his first managerial position in England. During the 2022–2023 campaign, Maresca assisted Guardiola as manager, and he surely learned a lot during that time. Like Maresca, Mikel Arteta was a member of Guardiola’s Manchester City staff and has been instrumental in turning Arsenal into a Premier League contender.
The appointment of Maresca would indeed pose a risk for the West London outfit. However, the decision to remove Pochettino from his position after a strong finish to the season was always going to be a significant one with no guaranteed outcome. Despite a challenging start to the season, Pochettino managed to orchestrate a turnaround at Stamford Bridge, guiding the Blues to a sixth-place finish in the Premier League after spending much of the campaign in the bottom half.
Journalist Dean Jones recently informed GIVEMESPORT that the players would have been taken aback by the news and likely would not have reacted positively, with some of the squad reportedly feeling ‘pretty annoyed’ by his departure. The respected reporter also confirms that there has been tension between the Argentine manager and the club for much of the season.
