Enzo Maresca has signed a three-year deal to become Manchester City manager, ending weeks of an open secret that had been quietly undermining his final weeks at Chelsea. The announcement was delayed while City and Chelsea negotiated compensation — Maresca had a contract at Stamford Bridge running until 2029.
Now he gets the job. And the burden that comes with it.
What he's walking into
Guardiola spent ten years at City winning 17 major trophies — six Premier League titles, one Champions League, three FA Cups, and more. The squad he's left behind is still competitive: City won the domestic cup double this season and pushed Arsenal deep into the title race, going 15 league games unbeaten before a rotated side lost the final-day farewell against Aston Villa. That's not a broken team. But Bernardo Silva and John Stones are gone, and the squad needs reinforcing. England midfielder Elliot Anderson has been widely linked.
Maresca knows the club. He was City's academy coach in 2020-21 and Guardiola's assistant in 2022-23 — the treble season. He then took Leicester to the Championship title before joining Chelsea in June 2024, where he won the Club World Cup and Conference League and qualified for the Champions League before his relationship with the hierarchy fractured. He left in January 2026.
His record is good. His experience in elite Premier League management is exactly one job. That gap matters when you're inheriting a club that expects to contend for everything, every year.
The shadow and the legal cloud
History on this particular challenge isn't encouraging. David Moyes lasted less than a season replacing Ferguson at United. Unai Emery was gone from Arsenal within 18 months of following Wenger. Arne Slot won the league in his first season at Liverpool after Klopp — then finished fifth. The pattern isn't a rule, but it's a pattern worth pricing in.
City's title odds will also carry an asterisk until the Premier League's financial misconduct case is resolved. Charged with over 100 breaches in February 2023, City went through hearings between September and December 2024 with no verdict yet delivered. Expulsion from the top flight remains a theoretical outcome. The club denies all charges, but that case isn't going away, and it hangs over everything Maresca is trying to build.
- Maresca signed a three-year contract at Manchester City
- He previously served as Guardiola's assistant during the 2022-23 treble season
- At Chelsea, he won the Club World Cup and Conference League (2024-26)
- City faces over 100 Premier League financial breach charges — no verdict yet
- Key departures: Bernardo Silva and John Stones
Guardiola's parting advice to whoever took over was: "Just be yourself... be free and your ideas and work a lot. Everything will be fine." Warm words. The independent commission deciding City's fate operates on a different timeline.
