There’s speculation that the club is frustrated with Maresca for pointing out the issues in defense and up front.
Now with no Palmer against Brighton, and Buonanotte ruled out because he can’t face his parent club, it looks like João Pedro will have to play the No.10 role.
If you notice, most of Chelsea’s signings—apart from Estevão and Pedro—hardly get game time. Maresca prefers playing George instead. Either the board is the one choosing these players, and Maresca doesn’t want to go against them, or he simply doesn’t rate them. Same thing happened last season—only Neto was starting regularly, the rest warmed the bench.
Like I said before, all these players the owners keep signing, Maresca didn’t ask for them. That’s why he’s not using them.
The club, however, feels satisfied with the current squad and believe players like Emegha, Sarr, and Penders will strengthen things in the future. There’s even a chance Emegha joins in January, with Guiu potentially leaving for Strasbourg permanently. They’re also keeping tabs on Morgan Rogers for upcoming windows, but any “big” signings will depend on sales. For January, they have around £40–60m in cash reserves.
Still, the coach deserves to be listened to after the season he just had. It feels selfish and unfair for the board to let him struggle instead of backing him fully.
But under Chelsea’s current model, every coach agrees from day one that they don’t get extra power over transfers. They only collaborate on profiles, not names. The owners believe the squad is more than good enough to deliver consistent results, and they want Maresca to just get on with it.
What they forget is injuries and failed investments. How can they expect to compete with the best like this? We’re slowly turning into Brighton.
And yet, some fans are still calling for Maresca’s head—like he’s supposed to be superhuman.
You could already see this coming when he pushed for Xavi Simons but the board ignored him, even though the money was available.
They look at him as a coach who can do well with whatever he has, but they’re forgetting this is football. If you really want to compete, you invest. Football is about money, and without it, you’ll always fall short.
