Enzo Maresca is not a popular Chelsea manager target at all – Talk Chelsea

With the news emerging that Chelsea are now close to hiring Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca as their next head coach moving forward, Chelsea fans are not happy.

They’re not happy in general, I can see that out there with my own eyes across social media right now. But they are not happy either on my own personal Substack community, Si Phillips Talks Chelsea.

Yes, I’m beginning to regret wanting Mauricio Pochettino gone! The shortlist of new managers has been underwhelming all week let’s be honest. I’ve been clutching at the fact that maybe they are smokescreens, and maybe they still are, I feel like some still are and always were. But let’s see what today brings on that.

For me, the only candidate that I could truly get behind and rate is Ruben Amorim, but apparently he’s now off the agenda entirely. I do hope there’s a VERY good reason that we are not appointing him, because he was the guy.

None of the others have inspired or excited me at all, not even a bit. I will back and support whoever comes in, and I will also look for and draw on the positives of whoever we decide on, even if that’s Roberto De Zerbi. But I can’t hide my emotions, disappointment, and true underwhelming feelings of our pending next head coach. I’d even rather throw Cesc Fabregas in there over the other names if we truly want to hire someone young and completely inexperienced. And I don’t think I’m joking there either!

Honestly, this is THE biggest decision they make. If this next manager fails then I want heads to roll without ANY excuses. If they hire the SIXTH person who has been named a head coach at this club within the last two years and they fail, then there should be ZERO excuses, heads have to roll.

This is SUCH a hugely risky strategy, and one that could backfire massively. Or maybe it doesn’t and maybe they get it spot on. And if they do, we will all applaud and praise them for that, of course. I don’t have agendas here, just call things as I see them.

The worrying thing is that judging by our latest set of votes, the two candidates that David Ornstein says are the only known options remaining to become the new Chelsea manager, are the two least popular choices amongst this well-respected Chelsea fan community on here.

Out of the four alleged shortlisted managers (from yesterday morning’s now out-dated news), this was the results of who you want the most:

• Roberto De Zerbi – 42%
• Kieran McKenna – 36%
• Enzo Maresca – 15%
• Thomas Frank – 6%

And adding in Ruben Amorim to the same poll vote:

• Ruben Amorim – 73%
• Roberto De Zerbi – 18%
• Kieran McKenna & Enzo Maresca – 4%
• Thomas Frank – 1%

Imagine if they now hire Frank!!

This is just astonishing though. I truly hope they know what they are doing here, because this is a fan base who will be ready to explode if it goes wrong now, with the majority being against the options we are apparently about to select from.

I have no doubts that the community on here will get behind whoever is appointed, as I will too. But I’d be so fearful about it getting very toxic again if we don’t get results next season and see progress.

De Zerbi is like marmite, he completely splits this fanbase who are either obsessed with him or hate him. This hire would just create more Chelsea fan civil wars, whereas Amorim, even if he wouldn’t be everyone’s first choice, would certainly unite a fanbase a bit more.

I’d be going for experience and proven anyway, but it seems this lot have no value on experience at all which again, is a HUGE risk.

I’m massively sceptical and fearful, I can’t lie. I’ll back whoever it is, and it looks like it may well now be Maresca. I don’t even dislike him and I do think there are many positives about his setup and how it would suit the players. I see the appeal and I will start to look more into his positives and research him more now today in other articles. I’m ready to give him a chance and I actually think he has the makings of a good manager. But none of that has been my concern, my concern is inexperience, making the step up to Chelsea, never managing in the Premier League, and how much of a HUGE risk it would be.

Sigh, again. So many sighs lately.