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Enzo Maresca is naive if he thinks he can win a war of words with the people who pay to watch Chelsea.
It is difficult to recall many managers who have come out on top after picking a fight with their own supporters. It is a road that usually leads to disaster, making it hard to understand why Maresca was so eager to veer into dodgy territory by having a pop at the crowd after Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Ipswich on Sunday.
The Italian’s tone-deaf comments about the “environment” at Stamford Bridge being the reason for his team going 2-0 down against opponents who could be relegated this weekend have gone down as well as could be expected. Fans who already had little time for Maresca have predictably taken offence. All they see is an unpopular manager looking to make excuses. They do not want to be lectured when Chelsea are 14th in the Premier League form table since Christmas and in danger of missing out on Champions League qualification.
Maresca lacks clout. Bringing him in for Mauricio Pochettino last summer was a gamble. He is inexperienced and trying to win over fans spoilt by watching sides led by Carlo Ancelotti, Antonio Conte, Thomas Tuchel and José Mourinho win trophy after trophy over the last 20 years. That’s one tough audience and it is pointless accusing them of being entitled. Football fans are stubborn and precious. It is not an equal relationship. Fans can moan as much as they like but they erupt if they are criticised, especially when the disapproval comes from a manager whose football is regarded by much of Chelsea’s paying public as a cure for insomnia.
Only the very best can get away with it. Mourinho once called out the atmosphere at Stamford Bridge but he was a club legend backed up by bucketloads of silverware. Maresca, by contrast, was hired after winning the Championship with Leicester. He cannot afford to lose the fans, even if he cannot understand why there seems to be a moment in every home game when there is grumbling from the stands about Chelsea’s patient style of play.
This pattern is unsustainable. Maresca, who has used Instagram to ask for positivity before games, gestured angrily for fans to be more supportive after Marc Cucurella broke the deadlock against Leicester last month and the mood was no less tense against Ipswich. Chelsea had wobbled after falling behind to Julio Enciso’s goal. The dissent grew after a shaky attempt to play out from a goal kick by Robert Sánchez and his back four led to the Ipswich midfielder Jens Cajuste shooting just wide from 20 yards.
It is a recurring theme with Sánchez, who remains Chelsea’s No 1 despite clearly not being up to the job. The former Brighton goalkeeper’s first piece of shaky distribution had come when he sent a pass straight to Jack Clarke in the fourth minute. Sánchez does not inspire trust. The Spaniard is lucky that only five of his mistakes have led to goals this season. He is less fortunate to be seen as the symbol of all that is wrong with Marescaball, with its mannered buildup play, inverted full-backs and rigid attacking formulas.
There were boos from the Matthew Harding Stand as Sánchez lined up the goal kick that followed Cajuste’s effort. This was a systems failure. There were ironic cheers when Sánchez urged his teammates forward and kicked long. Unfortunately Ipswich won the next header, attacked and made it 2-0.
For Maresca, who also endured supporter unrest at Leicester last season, the whole episode was evidence that the atmosphere had got on top of his players. He argued that going long doesn’t lead to more control. “The second goal we decide to play long because of the environment and we concede,” he said. Missing from his analysis, though, was an explanation for why taking a long goal kick would make his side so vulnerable to an instant riposte from Ipswich. It did not have to lead to George Hirst bullying Chelsea’s centre-backs in the air, Trevoh Chalobah being pulled out of position at right-back and Ben Johnson outjumping Cucurella at the far post.
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Good teams – teams with characters and leaders – can adapt and mix up their approach. The accusation against Maresca is inflexibility. Chelsea, who are outside the top five with six games left, improved in the second half, but they did not create many chances before Jadon Sancho’s late equaliser. There is concern over Cole Palmer’s regression in recent months.
It makes fans sceptical about Chelsea’s direction under the ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. It feels like the boos are not so much for Sánchez as the entire process. Fans who pay a lot for their tickets cannot understand why a spend of over £1bn on signings has not led to better results. What they are really doing is having a pop at the sporting directors, Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley, for hiring Maresca.
But it is rarely the executives who lose out. Stewart and Winstanley enjoy the support of Behdad Eghbali, Clearlake’s co-founder and the most influential voice at Chelsea. It is always easier to change the manager – particularly one who is starting to give the impression that life would be easier if games were played in empty stadiums.
