Enzo Maresca is unwell and the Chelsea side are also unwell.
The Blues have dropped 15 points this season, winning just one out of seven games, and the goodwill that came from winning the Club World Cup has dried up.
At the end of last season, it felt like there was a chance to build on something, as head coach Maresca led a young Chelsea team back into the Champions League and then went on to win the Conference League and Club World Cup titles.
It wasn’t quite the glory days of yesteryear, but wins begat wins, and after the chaotic early days of Todd Boley and the Clear Lake Capitals and a series of ineffective coaching changes, there was promise of better times to come.
Six months on, how much progress has been made? Judging by the boos at the end of the Blues’ recent poor result against Bournemouth, Maresca missed post-match media duties due to the virus, but it wasn’t a big deal.
Looking at the Premier League table, this seems like a harsh assessment as Chelsea have a good chance of qualifying for the Champions League.
But, as with Frank Lampard, the last managerial casualty of the Roman Abramovich era, the question is direction. At the halfway point in 2025/26, we are five points worse than at this point last year, and we are adrift.
Maresca feels he is responsible for most, if not all, of the underlying problems. Overrotation has been a problem for many years. Chelsea have made 55 changes to their squad this season, with only rock-bottom Wolves making more than 50 changes.
Managing a young team across multiple competitions requires delicate adjustments to the team’s balance, but Maresca has missed the mark on too many occasions. Benoît Badiashile was trusted from the off against Aston Villa last week, but was directly responsible for Ollie Watkins’ equaliser.
Maresca made five more changes for Tuesday night’s game against Bournemouth, but Chelsea’s midfield was torn apart at will, forcing two changes at half-time.
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Not all of it was his own fault. The team is severely lacking in depth in certain areas and lacks experience almost across the board. His starting XI against Bournemouth was the youngest to be selected in a Premier League game this season.
Despite Chelsea’s spending, a haphazard summer hasn’t really helped them, with Liam Delap, Jamie Gittens and Alejandro Garnacho failing to make a consistent impression.
The introduction of Reece James as one of these two substitutes allowed the Blues to move their captain into midfield if necessary, while also bringing one of the few natural and experienced leaders onto the pitch.
“If you think about the Chelsea team that won the title and won the Champions League, they’re probably the most experienced team we’ve ever seen,” Sky Sports’ Gary Neville said on the latest edition of the podcast.
Maresca received well-deserved praise for his tactics to win the Club World Cup in the summer, but little progress has been made in that regard on a broader front. He describes himself as a big-game manager and this season’s victories over Liverpool and Barcelona at Stamford Bridge, as well as the brilliant 10-man draw with Arsenal, are fair proof.
However, this 21-7 points drop also included the defeat against Leeds and dropping four points in a nine-game winless game against Bournemouth. If Trevor Chalobah had taken what appeared to be a blatant penalty, the loss against Newcastle would have also counted.
Maresca complained last season that it was difficult to face low blocks, and his attempts to solve this puzzle in a team costing hundreds of millions of pounds made him few friends. In one-off matches, he has shown a lot of promise, but the same tactical flaws and lack of a plan B that burdened him during his Championship season at Leicester more generally still remain.
Some Chelsea fans remain slow to react to Maresca. The chants of “I don’t know what I’m doing” directed at Cole Palmer when he was sent off against Bournemouth, the second time the Chelsea star was caught up in a game in the balance, felt as personal as they did analytical ones.
There were moments when it seemed like a connection was forming between Maresca and the fanbase. The two trophies last season and the scenes of jubilation after the win at Tottenham earlier this season come to mind.
But the vitriolic comments in public have not helped create the us-against-the-world mentality that fans have felt over the past 20 years under Jose Mourinho, Thomas Tuchel and even Frank Lampard.
But in the end, results are the only thing that can turn things around for Maresca. It’s the cold currency that buys coaching time at Chelsea.
