There are two major talking points among Chelsea fans right now: will we qualify for the Champions League? And will Enzo Maresca keep his job if we don’t? The answer to both is ‘probably’.
Two wins over the embarrassment that is Manchester United and a Nottingham Forest side seemingly desperate to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory will be enough to see the Blues finish fifth at worst. The odds are in their favour.
If they do not qualify then Maresca’s job will be under serious threat, no matter how clear he claims the “improvement” to be.
“How many times in the past two years have Chelsea been in the Champions League [places]? And this season we have been there almost all season. It’s an improvement or not? It’s already an improvement.”
He’s not wrong. Chelsea have already matched last season’s tally under Mauricio Pochettino with two games to play and the Italian is undoubtedly suffering as a result of his fast start.
If Chelsea’s poor form around Christmas and into the new year had instead come at the start of the season, it would have been written off as a bedding-in period, accepted by the fanbase with the promise (hope) of better things to come.
There’s a good chance BlueCo will stick with him no matter what happens. Despite their actions to the contrary since taking over, they made a point when they arrived of wanting to move away from a saloon door-style of ownership at Stamford Bridge which saw managers come and go with what would have been mock-worthy regularity under Roman Abramovich had they not consistently won silverware throughout his cut-throat reign.
Maresca can also quite reasonably claim that what he’s doing is working. Chelsea have a distinct style for the first time since Thomas Tuchel left the club. The players know what they’re supposed to be doing and appear to do that most of the time. Again, that hasn’t been the case since Tuchel. And he’s improved several players.
Moises Caicedo was a shell of his Brighton self before Maresca arrived and is now back among the very best central midfielders in the Premier League. Enzo Fernandez’s £105m price tag is nowhere near as laughable – albeit still a bit laughable – as it once was. Marc Cucurella has carried his Euro 2024 form into this season. Noni Madueke’s been good. Levi Colwill’s improving. Trevoh Chalobah’s been excellent ahead of what promises to be another sickening ‘pure profit’ sale.
He’s also got Chelsea to a point – not a million miles away from where they were under Tuchel after winning the Champions League – where you watch them and think with definitely two, maybe three, signings, they could be challenging for the title. All together now: a striker, a goalkeeper, probably a centre-back.
Winning cures all ills, and if Chelsea get their recruitment right and sign three top players in those positions to mount and sustain a title challenge, there obviously won’t be a problem.
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But there won’t be a Chelsea fan with any faith in the directors getting those signings right. Mainly because their record in the transfer market has been poor, but also because they will stick to a policy of signing young players who are unlikely to hit the ground running, meaning squad building at Stamford Bridge was always going to take longer than at any other top club.
If we’re to therefore assume there won’t be a title challenge under Maresca next season, there is a problem.
Chelsea were a joy to watch before Maresca’s philosophy was properly embedded as Cole Palmer, Nicolas Jackson and others flourished in something approaching a ‘we’ll score more than you’ attitude to the game. But they’ve been a hard watch since Christmas.
The fans have frequently voiced their frustration over the style, causing Maresca to come out swinging in press conferences on a couple of occasions, and it was recently claimed there is now ‘division’ among the Chelsea decision-makers over his future, with some holding ‘serious reservations over his style of play’, citing the ‘slow build-up’ and Cole Palmer’s dip in form as concerns.
That report claimed that ‘Champions League qualification and a win in the Europa Conference League could help Maresca’ but won’t necessarily make a difference; nor should it. Why should Nottingham Forest sh*tting the bed make any difference to the future of the Chelsea manager? The football is boring and the “improvement” minimal.
And without the qualification ultimatum, Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali should be asking themselves two questions: Are Chelsea going to be in the title race next season? And do we want to risk further bad blood by forcing the fans into watching turgid football in another stop-gap season? Almost certainly not, and no.