Enzo Maresca to Chelsea next manager truth revealed with shocking appointment reality

If nothing else, Chelsea's move towards appointing Enzo Maresca as their new head coach is a risk. Even when compared to 38-year-old Ipswich Town boss Kieran McKenna, the Italian has less senior management experience.

In fact, his tangible record is perhaps the weakest of all the final candidates Chelsea continue to consider. Thomas Frank has won promotion with Brentford on a much smaller budget than Maresca did with Leicester City last season and has kept his side in the Premier League for three years since.

He has shown adaptability across his career in the game, going from overseeing a team of high-flying scorers to a direct but effective threat at the top level. McKenna, who only has two years of senior coaching to his name, has back-to-back promotions with a tiny transfer kitty as well as a progression through the youth pathway in English football at Manchester United and Tottenham.

Roberto De Zerbi, always an outsider in this conversation so far, has 18 months at Brighton to support his time at Sassuolo and Shakhtar Donetsk. Maresca? Well, the bank is pretty empty early on in his career.

His Manchester City academy side were mightily impressive but had the advantage of elite youth players. Romeo Lavia and Cole Palmer among others made them a strong team on paper that won the Premier League 2 under Maresca's stewardship. Working for Pep Guardiola is certainly a feather in his cap though and the trust placed in him to be involved behind the scenes in a treble-winning campaign speaks for plenty.

Being one of the Spaniard's so-called disciplines is a popular title for emergent managers nowadays, especially after the success of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal. But it took two years before he fully won over the fans and even he benefited from the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown football not bringing heightened criticism from matchgoers. Maresca may well be a talented coach but the Arteta road to the top with Arsenal is not entirely repeatable at Chelsea with such an insatiable fanbase.

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Chelsea are a different beast altogether and appointments based on youth-level football or prior assistant coaching are not common. Maresca's only season at Leicester brings mixed reviews as well, not helping the optics of a move with a fanbase starting to lose their tether with the decision-makers in place.

On the face of it, he won promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt, uniting a fanbase (to start with at least) with impressive results and a possession-based system. His side scored the second most, conceded the fewest, topped the goal difference, and perhaps just as importantly, their underlying xG numbers had them at the top as well. They did it with a fresh style and achieved the expectations of many.

The problem? That this was really what most had predicted and had indeed expected. Anything but promotion under Maresca - regardless of his inexperience - would have been a massive disappointment for Leicester given he inherited a squad much stronger than his rivals, including a group of Premier League-ready options including Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Ricardo Pereira, Kelechi Iheanacho, and even an ageing Jamie Vardy.

That McKenna pushed him so close with an enhanced League One side is proof of not only his own personal success but also shows why there are worries around just how much weight to give Maresca's title win. Had Leicester cruised to the title, as it looked for the first six months like they were going to, then the 44-year-old's case to make a jump up to a bigger job would be justified. But a mid-season blip that almost derailed their campaign stands out as a red flag for a coach that has little evidence to show he can be adaptable or manage in a crisis.

Adaptation isn't a word he seems to accept at all. “I came to this club to play with this idea," he said in January after being audibly criticised by his own fans during a victory. "The moment there is some doubt about the idea, I will leave the day after, it’s so clear.

“You can feel the fans when they’re not happy, some people take things for granted.” He added: “We have won 26 of 34 games this season, unbelievable, a huge number.

“The only thing I can say is that people think it’s easy, but it’s not. Hopefully we can give our fans the right joy at the end of the season.”

As well as questions over how Maresca will take on a squad of young players - only three of his Leicester squad played over 1,000 minutes across 46 Championship games - there are worries over his play style itself. Chelsea wish to have a possession-dominant coach but Maresca takes that to another level.

When things went wrong for his Foxes side this season it left much to be desired due to the nature of performances and rigid structure. Chelsea fans don't take favourably to this sort of thing and won't be shy of letting their feelings be known.

Under Maurizio Sarri in 2018/19 there was never a relationship formed and within months he was the subject of angry chants. Even with a third-place finish and a Europa League triumph, Sarri won very few over and his record was much more established than that of Maresca.

The lack of freedom given to players is a concern given just how much Palmer and others thrived in an environment favouring player autonomy and creativity. Under Sarri it was often Eden Hazard bailing Chelsea out and Maresca's demands of playing his way or the highway easily grate similarly if found wanting against low-blocks.

Given these red flags around his appointment and the challenge that comes with adapting to a higher level of opposition across the board, it is a tough ask to hit the ground running and win over those already largely disenfranchised with how things are being run. The precedent of needing Champions League football has been set, and anything but a fast start will bring early mutterings over another poor choice.

How will Maresca handle this curious atmosphere at Stamford Bridge and a fanbase more demanding and vocal than that of Leicester? It waits to be seen.

No manager is bigger than a club though, and the former Parma boss' insistence at times at the King Power to speak openly about problems on the field and within the club won't go down well with those that were in the firing line during Pochettino's final weeks.

It all leaves plenty for supporters to ponder as Maresca moves into pole position to become the fourth permanent head coach of the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital era. Whilst the implementation of a highly coordinated build-up might make play more aesthetically pleasing, there are other issues for Maresca to solve and so far no evidence to show that he can.

Chelsea are pushing his appointment with all of this risk out in the open. They have put their eggs in this basket and must now hope that faith is rewarded. The success and failure of Maresca will go a long way to defining how quickly the club can move forward.