Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella has provided a scathing appraisal of the club’s decision to fire Enzo Maresca earlier this year. The Spaniard said that the squad had formed an unbreakable link with the Italian coach, who guided the Blues to Conference League and Club World Cup victories. Cucurella feels that the current “instability” at Stamford Bridge is the direct effect of leaving a stable project too early.
Despite Maresca’s success, Chelsea administration decided to change managers in January, replacing him with Liam Rosenior. Since then, the Blues have suffered greatly, winning only four of their past 12 games and being knocked out of the Champions League after an 8-2 aggregate loss to Paris Saint-Germain. Cucurella believes the club is now paying the price for a lack of expertise and the disruption of a tactical process that had finally started to work after 18 months of development.
Loyalty to their former boss
Cucurella told The Athletic: “With Enzo Maresca in charge, we were more stable since we had worked together for 18 months. There were certain reservations about him during our first preseason together. You need a method so that all players understand what we need to do. In our final months with Maresca, we played almost entirely by heart. If we modified the system, we understood what we needed to do. You require the time.
“When a manager gives you that confidence and gives you the opportunity to compete for trophies, you’d die for him. The instant Maresca left, it had a significant influence on us. These choices are made by the club. “If you had asked me, I would not have made this decision.”
The defender pointed to other clubs’ stability as a model Chelsea should have followed. He stated that the choice to bring in a new manager mid-season, without a complete pre-season, produced a chaotic situation in which players had little opportunity to digest new tactical ideas on the training ground.
Cucurella added :”The instability around the club stems from this, in a nutshell. We had a caretaker (former under-21s coach Calum McFarlane) first, followed by a new manager who had new ideas but little time to implement them. To make such a change, the best option is to wait until the conclusion of the season. Allow ample time for players and the new manager to prepare for the season. Look at Arsenal right now, who are competing for every prize. They’ve been with [Mikel] Arteta for over seven years, and they haven’t won much. But that trust in the project pays off.”
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