The new Manchester City manager is set to be announced shortly.
Enzo Maresca to become the new man to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Pep Guardiola.
BBC Sport report that their information is that Chelsea and Manchester City have been in lengthy negotiations about compensation and that agreement has now been reached on a figure ‘well in excess of £10m’ that Man City will pay the Stamford Bridge club.
The report going on to say: ‘One month on since Pep Guardiola’s announcement that he will leave City after a decade in charge, sources have told BBC Sport a deal to appoint the 46-year-old Maresca is close to being finalised.’
Enzo Maresca set to sign a three-year deal BBC Sport report.
Back on 1 January 2026, the official announcement stated: ‘Chelsea Football Club and Head Coach Enzo Maresca have parted company. With key objectives still to play for across four competitions including qualification for Champions League football, Enzo and the Club believe a change gives the team the best chance of getting the season back on track. We wish Enzo well for the future.’
At the time, fair to say that pretty much everyone took this to mean the usual Chelsea ‘mutually’ sacking yet another manager.
However, what this very much sounds like now, at least to me, is that it was more like Enzo Maresca ‘mutually’ sacking Chelsea off.
If a manager is sacked these days, it is often the case that the club keeps on paying the departed manager’s wages until he gets another job, rather than paying a huge lump sum. So if the manager doesn’t get another job, his whole contract eventually gets paid to the sacked team boss.
In this case though, rather than Enzo Maresca not getting paid any more by Chelsea (or having had a lump sum paid to him back in January), Manchester City set to give Chelsea more than £10m.
The assumption must be that Enzo Maresca forced his way out of Chelsea having been given a nod and a wink that the Manchester City job was going to be his.
Enzo Maresca was part of Pep’s set-up twice at Manchester City, either side of a disastrous six months in charge at Parma in the Italian second tier. Maresca then got the job at Leicester in June 2023 and after getting them promoted, was taken away by Chelsea for 18 months.
I think we can take for granted that Pep Guardiola has been key in guiding Manchester City on who they should get as his replacement, so in Enzo Maresca it is somebody who well understands how things are done at the Etihad.
This is now the current position for permanent Premier League managers – as at 23 June 2026:
Mikel Arteta (Arsenal) 22 December 2019
Eddie Howe (Newcastle United) 8 November 2021
Unai Emery (Villa) 1 November 2022
Daniel Farke (Leeds) 4 July 2023
Regis Le Bris (Sunderland) 1 July 2024
Fabian Hurzeler (Brighton) 2 July 2024
Frank Lampard (Coventry) 28 November 2024
David Moyes (Everton) 11 January 2025
Sergej Jakirovic (Hull) 11 June 2025
Keith Andrews (Brentford) 27 June 2025
Michael Carrick (Man Utd) 13 January 2026
Vitor Pereira (Forest) 15 February 2026
Roberto De Zerbi (Spurs) 31 March 2026
Marco Rose (Bournemouth) 1 June 2026
Andoni Iraola (4 June 2026)
Pierre Sage (15 June 2026)
Xabi Alonso (Chelsea) set to take over on 1 July 2026
No manager (Fulham)
No manager (Man City)
No manager (Ipswich)