Alan Shearer has spoken about the Maresca departureplaceholder image
Alan Shearer has spoken about the Maresca departure | Getty Images
Alan Shearer has been addressing Chelsea’s decision to allow Enzo Maresca to leave after 18 months in charge.
Alan Shearer has criticised Chelsea over their handling of Enzo Maresca, who left the club on New Year’s Day after 18 months in charge. Maresca is said to have asked to leave after his relationship deteriorated over squad structure decisions, and Chelsea were said to have been willing to part ways given they were not satisfied with the Italian for one reason or another.
Chelsea are fifth in the Premier League table and in with plenty of chance of qualifying for the Champions League for the second successive season, but Shearer feels as though the Blues were always limited to what they could achieve with their transfer strategy.
“You know when you go into that job what you're doing, it's a very different football club to others in terms of how it's managed,” Shearer told Betfair. “That's not Maresca, that's the people above him. Their model is obviously to buy young, develop them, and give them crazy long contracts with the potential to sell. I don't think you're going to win the league like that. You might get into the top four because you can spend, but in the main, the guy coming in has to do better than the guy that's just left.
“The guy that left won two trophies last year. They were sitting in fifth, one win off the top four, so, I think he did a really good job. I'm not sure he could have done any better. His stock is high. Am I surprised? Not really. I think Chelsea is a bonkers football club at times. That's the owners, that's how they want to run their club. It's very different, and that's what Maresca was trying to tell us with that little rant three weeks ago.
“He was manager of the month in November. I know they've only won one in seven, and at a top club that is hard to watch, but nothing surprises me in football, let alone at that club.”
Shearer is spot on
Shearer is spot on about Maresca, who had a ceiling placed upon him. But as far as Chelsea were concerned, Maresca’s strength was that he was happy to work with young players and work within the structure provided by Chelsea, but the Blues chose the wrong hill to die upon.
Maresca was not asking for superstar signings, only for them to replace his injured starting centre-back in Levi Colwill, which seems like a very reasonable request. Chelsea will struggle to find a manager who went along with the strategy so closely and achieved such relative success, as Maresca did.
Any manager with a reputation is going to demand big signings, and even if a young manager like Liam Rosenior comes in and does manage to do well, he will some day reach the same point as Maresca did. The transfer strategy of developing young players is not a bad one, but even teams who spend big on polished players, like Arsenal have over recent years, usually need a big signing or two to take them over the top. To think Chelsea will not to that scenario is foolish. The Blues are either asking for a repeating scenario with this virtual sacking or delaying the inevitable.
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