Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has leapt to the defence of former mentor Pep Guardiola, accusing the Manchester City boss’s critics of taking pleasure in his struggles.
Maresca cut his coaching teeth across two spells at City, including as one of Guardiola’s assistants during the 2022/23 Premier League title success.
That triumph was part of an ongoing run of four straight titles, but the sequence appears likely to end this season, with the champions only seventh at Christmas, 12 points behind leaders Liverpool having played a game more.
An extraordinary downturn has seen City win just once in their last 12 games across all competitions and already led many commentators to hail a spectacular end to the club’s period of Guardiola-inspired dominance.
That would, of course, be music to the ears of rivals who have spent much of the last decade trailing in City’s wake, but Maresca hit back at those who are already revelling in writing Guardiola off.
“I spoke with Pep yesterday and he is completely calm and knows exactly what has happened there,” Maresca said. “But the one thing we know in football is that because of the situation they have there, people are waiting for something bad to happen so they can be happy.
“When you see someone being so successful season after season, the moment they drop, people love to say: ‘Ah, look, he is not good enough.' But I don't think that is the correct thing to do."
City’s sudden demise has prompted a multitude of theories over whether Guardiola and some of his key players may have stuck with a tired project for too long.
Guardiola is in his ninth season at the helm, but signed a new contract at the start of City’s slump earlier this season, while the club failed to move last summer to replace ageing forces like Kyle Walker and Kevin De Bruyne.
Maresca, however, believes City’s heavy injury list is enough to explain the drop-off.
"The reality is when you see somebody like Pep dominate for eight or nine years and suddenly the position changes quickly, it is not because someone is not good enough,” he added. “It is because something has happened there.
“If you are involved in football you can see there that with the amount of injuries they have this is not normal.”
