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Hello! Chelsea have chosen their next manager. Get your chess boards out.
Coming up:
🇮🇹 Maresca closing in on the Chelsea job
🤔 Which coach truly fits at Manchester United?
💰 Bellingham outselling Vinicius Junior
🗣 Chelsea racism scandal victim speaks
A Chels Game: Have Stamford Bridge club made the right move?
How long is a long time in football?
Yesterday, The Athletic FC dived head-first into the Premier League’s managerial mosh pit. At that point, much of the chatter about ins and outs was pretty speculative.
Then, within hours, Chelsea went hard on appointing Enzo Maresca, and Kieran McKenna took himself off the market by moving to finalise a new contract with Ipswich Town.
We’ll start with Chelsea. Their offer to Maresca is advancing fast and all being well, it will conclude the process of replacing Mauricio Pochettino, who left Stamford Bridge seven days ago.
Leicester City, Maresca’s current club, have given Chelsea permission to speak to him. The Athletic’s David Ornstein expects him to sign a long-term deal this week, spanning at least five years.
Chelsea are investing in a coach who has just won England’s Championship with Leicester. They’re also punting on one with an extremely short track record — another Pep Guardiola acolyte.
One former Guardiola assistant, Mikel Arteta, is running the show at Arsenal. Soon, a second will be patrolling the Stamford Bridge touchline.
Will Pep’s finishing school have the same effect?
Does Maresca have the making of a king?
As a player, Maresca was a well-travelled midfielder who won Serie A with Juventus. What matters more, though, is his coaching pedigree.
Aside from a short and not-very-happy stint at Parma in Italy, he has one full season as a head coach behind him: this past year at Leicester. There’s no denying it went well — they topped the Championship with 97 points.
So on paper, all good. But his popularity hasn’t been unanimous. Maresca likes his side to play out incredibly patiently from the back, and sections of Leicester’s crowd craved faster, more direct football.
Managers speaking their minds is in vogue. In January, after audible muttering in the stands, Maresca warned that “the moment there is doubt about (my) idea — the day after, I will leave”. Suffice to say, he’s sure of himself.
When Maresca joined Leicester from Manchester City last year, I spoke to Robert Snodgrass, a winger with experience of Maresca’s traits (the Italian, it turns out, is inspired by chess):
- “Enzo introduced me to the idea of being managed tactically, of getting the best out of you by educating you.”
- “I’d always thought of pressing as pressing other players. He got my head into how to press space.”
- “He’s from the same mould as Guardiola. He’s a top operator.”
Time will tell. And Chelsea being Chelsea, it will tell fairly quickly.
McKenna, the other pawn in Chelsea’s game
McKenna also came onto Chelsea’s radar, before being informed over the weekend that he was no longer in contention.
The Brighton & Hove Albion and Manchester United jobs were other possibilities for him but news broke yesterday that he was poised to stay at Ipswich and extend his deal there.
Perhaps McKenna owes his current club that loyalty. Or perhaps, with the Chelsea post gone and the madness of the market making heads spin, this feels like the wrong time to jump ship on a whim.
Ten Hag or ten seven other candidates at Man Utd?
If Maresca to Chelsea is a slightly out-there choice, it reflects the difficulty of finding a coach who fits a club perfectly.
This analysis of options for Manchester United by Mark Carey, Liam Tharme and Thom Harris sums up the challenge.
They’ve run the numbers on Pochettino, Thomas Tuchel, Gareth Southgate, Graham Potter, Roberto De Zerbi, Thomas Frank and Michel, as options to replace Erik ten Hag — assuming he leaves.
There’s some excellent insight here (including the graph above, which shows the team are at a low ebb) but I must confess, I came away with the conclusion that none of these alternatives is either foolproof or 100 per cent suited to this Old Trafford squad.
Which must increase the chances of Ten Hag sticking around.
Hey Jude
He came to create history. 🫲🫱
🤍 What a season, @BellinghamJude!
#LALIGAEASPORTS | @realmadriden— LALIGA English (@LaLigaEN) May 4, 2024
My Ballon d’Or vote (not that I get one) goes to Jude Bellingham. Have Real Madrid fans seen a better debut year?
We’ve learned a lot about his technical class at the Bernabeu but what struck me about this feature on Bellingham, before Saturday’s Champions League final against Borussia Dortmund, is the hype he lives with: staff at Adidas going mad for him, police asking for selfies, shirts with his name selling 10 times as many as with Vinicius Junior’s — a crazy stat.
All in all, nothing is more crucial to Bellingham than his temperament, the composure that lets him rock and roll in one of football’s hottest crucibles.
It’s hard to make an argument for Madrid failing to win at Wembley, which is a bit of a shame because the fairytale would be a night of glory for Dortmund’s coach, Edin Terzic — “the passionate boy from the neighbourhood”. It’s asking a lot.
Speaking out
(Jimmy Aggrey/Getty Images; design: John Bradford)
Readers of this newsletter will remember our coverage of the ex-Chelsea coach, Gwyn Williams, who was secretly banned for life by the Football Association over allegations of bullying and racism at the club.
One of the players who was a victim of that scandal (for which Chelsea reached several out-of-court financial settlements) has bravely waived his right to anonymity to speak to The Athletic about his trauma. His name is Jimmy Aggrey.
The details of the treatment Aggrey suffered are shameful and it’s worth warning you that a lot of what is in the interview makes for deeply unpleasant reading.
Some of it we can’t repeat here but you’ll get the idea when Aggrey recalls being asked things like: “Can you run like Linford Christie (the black British sprinter)? Do you rob grannies on your estate? Are you keeping fit so you run drugs round the tower blocks?”
It’s a vitally important piece of journalism by Daniel Taylor. And Aggrey’s voice deserves to be heard.
Around The Athletic FC
🤝 The penny should be dropping by now. If you happen to have a good coach, it’s best to nail them down — and in that spirit, Aston Villa have given Unai Emery a five-year deal. Deservedly.
🇧🇷 Here’s a very good legal explainer on the betting offences West Ham United’s Lucas Paqueta is accused of. There’s so much at stake for him — potentially his career.
🏆 The Athletic’s Sam Lee has picked master-of-all-trades Rodri as Manchester City’s player of the year. It’s ludicrous that the midfielder wasn’t shortlisted for the Premier League’s POTY trophy.
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
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