Will Chelsea ever hire a manager who is fully onboard with their intense youth project?
And is it just plain unrealistic to expect any manager to be content with this and should they be the ones who change their ways? The second answer is correct, obviously.
Enzo Maresca wants more experience added to his Chelsea squad this summer, I mean, that’s not even info, he has said it publicly himself in the last couple of weeks.
Reliable French reporter Julien Laurens said this week:
“It’s interesting because Enzo Maresca wants experienced players, but the club and the sporting directors still want U25 players because of their values, sign on fees, and wages.”
It is interesting, indeed. I find it interesting that if this is what Maresca is saying and wanting now, wasn’t it all discussed at interview stage and wasn’t he fully aware and on board with the project that was being presented to him at the time? Now all of a sudden he wants experience?
Is it just Maresca waking up to it now? Or perhaps he was just desperate to get the job and just happy to go into it blind? Perhaps the vision sold to him was more open? I doubt that, because Chelsea have been happy to brief multiple times about their project and how it’s based around low wages and young players. So Maresca would have known this.
But the bigger concern for me is that why haven’t they all stayed in-sync? The same thing happened with Mauricio Pochettino, who also asked for more experience. Did the ‘yes men’ become ‘no men’?
It concerns me that we are seeing this pattern. If Chelsea want a manager to work, maybe they need to provide a manager with what said manager believes they need to make it work, no?
I know there has been examples of how this has been a disaster in recent times, Thomas Tuchel the prime example. But this is why I’d much rather see a squad built by one Director of Football ALONGSIDE the head coach, looking at players who suits his system and players that the manager signs off on as well.
Interestingly, I’ve heard that it has been Joe Shields who has been championing Maresca. But there are others in the board room who are not convinced at all at this point. He will be reviewed at the end of the season regardless of how it ends.
How can you expect a head coach to play his style of football if that head coach does not believe he has the players to do it? You want to install a philosophy from your head coach but you have a strict recruitment and wage policy that restricts it?
This will only see hiring and firing patterns year upon year. Everyone must truly be in-sync at the point of hire and everything must be honest and out in the open. That’s the only way you will get stability and success.
