Chelsea recently fired manager Enzo Maresca and replaced him with Blue Co Strasbourg manager Liam Rosenior. But they did not fire Maresca due to poor results or tactics, but rather because he was becoming impossible to deal with.
In fairness to Maresca, his ire was understandable. Coming into the 2025/26 Premier League season, Maresca was very upset that the club did not listen to his transfer ideas, as they signed superfluous and unproven attacking players by the dozen instead of bringing in a new top defender.
Chelsea had lost Levi Colwill to an ACL tear in a devastating blow before the season even started, but instead of adequately replacing, by far, their best center back, the Blues did not listen to Maresca’s constant calls for a new player.
Maresca’s wailing, however, wore thin, and on his way out, he made it patently obvious that he really wanted Chelsea to sign a center back in the January transfer window.
Well, now that Maresca is gone, the Blues are indeed going after a top center back, but their best options, like Nico Schlotterbeck and Alessandro Bastoni, are unreachable during the season.
Worse yet, it sounds like Maresca’s very public complaining about a new center back for Chelsea has had the consequence of screwing over the Blues transfer approach, even as Maresca is no longer coaching the team.
According to a report from Kaveh Solhekol of Sky Sports, Enzo Maresca has actually weakened Chelsea’s bargaining power. Solhekol said, “Enzo Maresca’s public comments that Chelsea should sign a centre back weakened their leverage.”
It is clear that this is true, as Chelsea have only been concretely linked to one top option in Jeremy Jacquet of Rennes. But while the Frenchman is one of the best young options on the transfer market, there is no question that he is still raw and not as elite in the here and now as Chelsea will have their fans think.
When you make it so obvious to everyone that you are after a specific player on the transfer market, everyone else is going to jack up the price. And so if Blues fans had dreams of Schlotterbeck or Bastoni this winter, Maresca all but guaranteed they are out of reach.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling.