Manchester City Football Club announced their new manager at the start of this week, rolling out the red carpet with all the digital fanfare they could muster. In spite of Enzo Maresca holding a considerably lower profile and less experience than the world generally expected to succeed the peerless Pep Guardiola at Etihad Stadium.
The official reveal only emerged after tedious legal wrangling over Chelsea's compensation package, yet it now signals a fresh, if controversial, era for the Citizens.
​Predictably, the reaction from the Blues hierarchy has been met with widespread derision and humour, appearing as a masterclass in hypocritical sour grapes.
It takes a monumental amount of gall for a club like CFC to criticise anyone for staff instability, particularly after the ruthless, questionable, and frankly clinical
stewardship of potential arch-criminal and Vladimir Putin associate, Roman Abramovich. That man treated managers like cheap shoes, wearing them out until they were threadbare and replacing them with an utter lack of emotion or human attachment.
​However, despite the complete lack of self-awareness from an organisation now run by American financiers who appear to misunderstand football entirely, the Londoners actually have a point. Maresca did indeed leave the West London team in the lurch, yet he supposedly only reached his breaking point when he could no longer stomach the peculiar practices, ill-advised interventions and constant interruptions from Chels' chiefs Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly.
Even so, Maresca apparently took the unprecedented, naive and rather infantile step of personally informing the billionaire Stamford Bridge supremos of his desperate wish to replace the Spaniard. With a valid contract already in place, such a move was remarkably odd; any other seasoned gaffer would have kept their cards close to their chest, allowing legal representatives to handle the heavy lifting once they defect when the Citizens come a-calling.
"In an explosive statement released on Monday afternoon, Chelsea said the club had "felt let down" by Maresca over his exit as manager during the middle of last season."Sky Sports
But no, not our boy Enzo: he clearly knows exactly what he wants, and he certainly has form in this exact scenario. It is not exactly a North Korean defection, though Man City and the Blues are (or should be) direct rivals for domestic and European silverware.
So when did the Italian opportunist last desert a team in need? It was Leicester City; the 46-year-old was hired by the Foxes on June 16, 2023, and swiftly abandoned the project on June 3, 2024.
​In that single year, the journeyman (having previously graced Sampdoria, West Brom, Juventus, Bologna, Piacenza, Fiorentina, Sevilla, Olympiacos (where a similarly and mutually terminated contract transpired), Malaga, Palermo and Verona as a player) absolutely transformed the East Midlands outfit. They had been relegated to the Championship and were instantly restored to the big time under his guidance.
Nonetheless, Maresca chose to jump ship at the very first opportunity. That's right: Chelsea poached their man from the 2015/16 Premier League champions.
Indeed, as is now painfully apparent to the Blue Army, Maresca was desperately needed at the King Power. Though even he would likely have been relegated given the lack of backing and the relatively awful squad at his disposal.
What goes around comes around! This writer cannot honestly envisage the man from Italy being anything like as dominant or successful as his City predecessor, especially when considering the concerning lack of goals Maresca's system produces on average.
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