Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has strongly rebuffed his links to Manchester City as Pep Guardiola’s prospective replacement next season. The Athletic reported there’s a strong responsibility that this is Guardiola’s final
season at City, adding that the ownership has started to look at candidates to fill the huge shoes, with Maresca, who apprenticed under the Spanish legend for a while, a strong contender.
Maresca, who arrived at Chelsea in July 2024 from Leicester City, won the UEFA Conference League and Club World Cup in his first season at Stamford Bridge. Before that, he worked under Pep in the 2022-23 season, developing a similar possession-based style of football that Guardiola is renowned for pioneering.
“It doesn’t affect me at all because I know that is 100 percent speculation,” Maresca said ahead of Chelsea’s league game against Newcastle United. “And in this moment, there is no time for these kinds of things. First of all, because I have a contract here until 2029. And my focus, I said many times, that is just about this club and I’m very proud to be here.”
Maresca was asked if he’d promise Chelsea fans that he’d still be here next season and the Italian was unambiguous.
“Absolutely, yes,” he said. “Again, I have a contract until 2029 and this is speculation 100 percent. “So I don’t have nothing to add because, again, I don’t pay attention and if we continue to talk about that, that means that I’m paying attention to that.”
The Athletic’s report also said that Man City looked at Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta, another one of Guardiola’s students, before he signed his renewal at the North London club in 2024.
Unlike Marsesca, Arteta hasn’t won any trophies at Arsenal for the past few years, but his transformation job has been more immense, taking the club from the claws of mediocrity to consistent title-challenging.
“The transformation has been around the club in terms of the size, in terms of revenues, in terms of the squad that we built, the value of it, the sporting success that we had, even though we haven’t won any major trophies yet,” Arteta said on Friday, as he embarks on his seventh year at the club. “I think it’s very, very consistent, so we’re in the right place.”
