Chelsea have announced that Enzo Maresca has left his role as head coach following a fractious fortnight in which his relationship with those above him deteriorated.<\/p>\n
The issue intensified after Maresca \u201crefusal to clarify speculation that he was criticising co-sporting directors Paul Winstanley and Laurence Stewart, or perhaps even co-owner Behdad Eghbali,\u201d a development that placed tensions in the public eye and led to a period that ended with Maresca considering his future at Stamford Bridge. Crunch talks were held on Thursday as the club attempted to resolve the dispute, and the decision to part company was confirmed shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cChelsea Football Club and Head Coach Enzo Maresca have parted company,\u201d a short statement from the club read. \u201cWith key objectives still to play for across four competitions including qualification for Champions League football, Enzo and the Club believe a change gives the team the best chance of getting the season back on track.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wish Enzo well for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maresca had signed a five-year contract when he took the job 18 months ago and was viewed as a long-term appointment. The club had always planned to review his position at the end of the season, as was the case with the meeting that preceded the departure of his predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, but the immediate split was not anticipated.<\/p>\n
Like Mauricio Pochettino, Graham Potter and Thomas Tuchel before him, Maresca was unable to find a way to operate effectively within the club\u2019s system. The search for his successor will be led by co-sporting directors Winstanley and Stewart, who were central to his appointment and now face mounting scrutiny from supporters concerned by the club\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n
Chelsea must quickly refocus on a testing schedule. A trip to Manchester City on Jan. 4 begins a month featuring nine games across competitions, including a Carabao Cup semifinal against Arsenal and a Champions League meeting with Napoli. A poor run of domestic form has left Chelsea looking up at the Premier League top four, and missing out on next season\u2019s Champions League would further deepen the crisis inside Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea confirm Enzo Maresca’s exit after tensions with sporting directors and ownership surfaced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1089,1087,1215],"class_list":["post-5604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-coaching-change","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}