“He was part of decision to sack” – Enzo Maresca decision on £250,000-per-week Chelsea player sacked him
Enzo Maresca has parted ways with Chelsea after just a year and a half in charge, and hope of a strong and stable period under the Italian coach are dashed.
Journalists all over are giving their take on what has gone wrong to send Maresca from manager of the month in November to out in the cold now, and Jacob Steinberg adds some interesting detail in his piece for the Guardian.
Reece James decision was part of club’s call to remove him
He writes that the club were “baffled” by the coach’s now notorious comments after the win over Everton last month that he wasn’t getting enough “support” internally. This was seen as one of several “self inflicted wounds” which pointed to Maresca’s dissatisfaction with the Chelsea project.
There was also a war with the medical department behind the scenes which appears to have been far more serious than thought. The club felt that there were times when Maresca “ignored the data” over managing minutes including when he played Reece James for 3 games in a week last month.
There was ultimately a feeling that Maresca’s behaviour had “affected the team’s form,” hence the decision to move him on right away rather than hold out until a review at the end of the season as they had always planned to.
Furthermore…
Things reached breaking point with Maresca in the last few days after a run of bad results, but it seems that things were building in the background for some time before that. The manager had conversations with Man City which Chelsea obviously didn’t take kindly to.
Chelsea announced the sacking with statement on their website which made clear what they want the public perception of their reasoning to be.