Guardiola’s leaving. Contract’s got a year left but he’s going anyway. Ten years, six league titles, Champions League in 2023. They’ll announce it Sunday after the Villa game.
Replacement? Enzo Maresca.
Never heard of him? Neither have most people. Maresca managed Leicester last season, got them promoted. Then went to Chelsea, won the Conference League, walked out in January after a fallout with the board. Before all that? Guardiola’s assistant for a season in 2022/23. That’s his CV.
Why him? City’s one of the biggest clubs around and they’re giving it to a bloke whose big achievement is the Championship?
Who is Enzo Maresca?
As a player? Nothing special. Midfielder. West Brom, then Juventus in 2000. Serie A medal in 2002 but mostly sat on the bench. Loans at Bologna and Piacenza. Best years at Sevilla, 2005-2009. Four seasons, two UEFA Cups, 21 goals in 138 games. Then Olympiacos, Malaga, Sampdoria. Retired 2017.
Coaching: Ascoli, then assistant at Sevilla and West Ham. City took him for the under-23s in 2020. Won Premier League 2 first go. Guardiola noticed.
2022, Guardiola moves him up. Whole season with the first team, watching, learning. City won the treble that year. League, FA Cup, Champions League.
Leicester next. Just relegated, wanted to go straight back up. Maresca does exactly that. Wins the Championship with 97 points, which is massive. Thirty-one wins from 46 games. The way they played was basically Guardiola-lite – loads of possession, pressing high, playing out from the back even when teams were right on them. Worked.
Chelsea hired him in 2024. First season goes pretty well – fourth in the league, wins the Conference League. But then it goes wrong. Him and the owners start clashing, there’s disagreements about how to build the squad, typical Chelsea stuff. He walks away in January, hasn’t even been there 18 months.
And now City want him. That’s where we are.
The Tactical Philosophy
Maresca’s whole thing is possession. His teams want the ball. Not passing it around for the sake of it, but keeping it so you can’t get hurt. When you’ve got it, they can’t score.
Leicester: 4-3-3 turning into 3-2-5 going forward. Full-backs high, midfielder drops, numbers everywhere. The goalkeeper, Hermansen, played it short constantly. Didn’t matter if teams pressed them high, Maresca wanted them playing out from the back. Sometimes it looked dangerous but it worked.
Chelsea different. 4-2-3-1 but Gusto tucked in from right-back, other full-back wide. Gave Palmer loads of space to operate between the lines. After seven games of last season they had crazy possession stats and they’d scored 16 goals already. The football looked good.
Defensively they press but it’s not chaos. It’s organized. The front three press as a unit, the midfielders step up when the trigger’s there. It’s the kind of pressing that looks brilliant when it’s on but can fall apart quickly if you’re not disciplined.
One big thing with Maresca – he rotates the squad heavily. We’re talking six or seven changes game to game sometimes. Not rotation for fitness reasons but because he picks teams based on what he needs for each opponent. Some games you need pace to stretch them, other games you need control to dominate the ball. He’s very deliberate about it.
At Chelsea this caused problems because he completely froze out players who didn’t suit his style. Didn’t matter what they cost or who they were. If you couldn’t do what he needed, you didn’t play. Ruthless, some said. Stubborn, said others. But it shows he won’t compromise on how he wants to play.
The Challenge of Following Guardiola
The tactics aren’t the problem. You can watch City play, you can see what they do. The hard bit is everything that comes with managing City after Guardiola’s been there 10 years. The standards are ridiculous. The pressure’s constant. You’re managing players who’ve won six league titles and don’t have anything left to prove.
Guardiola’s spent a decade building this. It’s not just football, it’s everything – training, recruitment, the lot. Maresca’s walking into all of it.
Different personalities. Guardiola goes mental on the touchline over a misplaced pass at 3-0. Maresca’s calmer, more measured. That might suit a squad of experienced winners who don’t need constant yelling. Or it might be a problem if results dip and players start wondering if he’s got the authority for this job.
The squad’s in transition too. De Bruyne’s gone to Saudi. Walker’s left. Ederson’s probably off next summer. Bernardo Silva’s captain now at 32. It’s not the squad that won four titles in a row anymore, it needs rebuilding.
And that’s a big one – can Maresca pull top players? If you’re a world-class player deciding where to go, do you pick City under a manager who’s only done it in the Championship and one season at Chelsea? Or are you going somewhere with a proven manager? City’s recruitment team have a big job on their hands.
Tactically, Guardiola’s City are a bit predictable now. Teams have worked out what to do – sit back, stay tight, don’t commit high, catch them on the counter. Works more than you’d think. Maresca needs to add something without throwing out what works.
Numbers: Guardiola’s won 73 per cent at City. Six titles in nine years. Four consecutive from 2021-2024. Maresca got 67 per cent in the Championship. Different level entirely.
What to Expect in Year One
He won’t change everything. City will still play how Guardiola had them playing – lots of the ball, high press, control through positioning. Formation might be a bit more rigid, maybe a proper 4-3-3 instead of Guardiola’s constant changes, but the basics won’t shift.
There’ll be mistakes. Managing in the Championship is completely different to managing Man City. The pressure’s on a different level. Every game gets analyzed to death. Every decision gets questioned. Maresca’s never had that. About to.
Youth will get chances. Maresca likes young players, isn’t scared of using them. At Leicester he gave teenagers proper game time in big matches. City’s academy produces top talent but most of them end up on loan because there’s no route into the first team. That might change under Maresca. Won the Premier League 2 with the under-23s in 2021, knows what’s there.
First season’s about establishing himself really. Guardiola finished second this year which is City’s worst finish since 2020. Not a disaster but below their standards. Maresca doesn’t need to win everything immediately but he needs to show he belongs at this level. That he can grow into it. That City made the right choice.
Can he do it?
Maresca wasn’t on anyone’s list. Not Xavi, not Arteta, not Alonso, not Kompany. Just a bloke who won the Championship then spent 18 months at Chelsea before walking out. That’s what City are working with.
But you can see why they’ve gone for him. He gets Guardiola’s football because he spent a full season learning it from the man himself. He then took that to Leicester and won the Championship playing that style. He’s committed to using data, he wants to bring academy players through, he won’t compromise on his principles. On paper it makes some sense.
The problem is nobody knows if he can actually do this job. His tactical knowledge is clearly there. But can he handle the pressure? Can he get a dressing room full of serial winners to respect him? Can he deal with Champions League knockout football where one bad decision can end everything? These are all questions without answers right now.
Guardiola called him “one of the best managers in the world” which is massive praise but also massive pressure. If Maresca struggles and City finish fifth or sixth, that quote’s going to haunt him. The scrutiny’s going to be insane.
Give it a year and we’ll know. Either he’ll have won trophies and proved he deserves to be there, or City will be looking for someone else to try and save what’s left of this era. There’s no middle ground at this level. You deliver or you’re out. That’s how it works at City.
The margins don’t allow for anything else.
For the full picture of what Maresca is walking into, our coverage of Guardiola’s decade at Manchester City and all the latest Manchester City transfer and manager news covers everything you need heading into next season.