Chelsea moved early on a managerial change just as a congested January schedule arrived. The club\u2019s social media announcement of Maresca\u2019s departure came shortly after a list of the nine games crammed into the month of January alone, leaving immediate questions about who will take charge for Sunday\u2019s trip to Manchester City.<\/p>\n
The club\u2019s brief statement described the decision as mutual. \u201cEnzo and the club believe a change gives the team the best chance of getting the season back on track,\u201d it read. The 99-word release made no mention of a successor plan.<\/p>\n
The composition of Maresca\u2019s backroom team is unclear. He brought six assistants with him from Leicester City when appointed in 2024. Ex-Chelsea goalkeeper Willy Caballero is the most prominent of that group and has been the stand-in during Maresca\u2019s touchline suspensions. Caballero also addressed the media this week after Maresca complained of feeling unwell.<\/p>\n
If the hierarchy opts for a clean break, they may turn temporarily to U21 coach Calum McFarlane. The 40-year-old was appointed in July after two years with Southampton\u2019s youth teams. McFarlane worked at Manchester City\u2019s academy and overlapped with Maresca, who was in charge of the U23s for one season in 2020\u201321.<\/p>\n
The search for a permanent successor is already under way. Fabrizio Romano reported the club\u2019s hierarchy are confident of sealing Maresca\u2019s successor in a matter of days. Strasbourg\u2019s Liam Rosenior was named in that report and has been widely billed as the most likely candidate given the Ligue 1 side\u2019s status as Chelsea\u2019s feeder club.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth\u2019s Andoni Iraola, who will be out of contract this summer, has also been floated, alongside Xavi Hern\u00e1ndez and Cesc F\u00e0bregas. Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner was initially thought to be among the candidates, but The Athletic claim the Austrian coach is \u201cnot in the frame.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chelsea parted with Maresca and must name who leads the side at Manchester City this weekend on Sun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5610,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1089,1087,1215],"class_list":["post-5611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-chelsea-struggles","tag-coaching-change","tag-controversy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611","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=5611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}