Chelsea are about to embark on yet another new era as Enzo Maresca prepares for his first season in the Stamford Bridge dugout.
Here we go again, another new manager for Chelsea fans to get behind.
Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and Mauricio Pochettino have all taken charge of Chelsea in the BlueCo era.
Pochettino’s time at the club came to a rather surprising end in May, leaving pundit Paul Merson truly stunned.
Chelsea have now decided to go with Enzo Maresca, luring him away from newly-promoted Leicester City.
The idea may well be to replicate what Mikel Arteta has done for Arsenal in recent years having worked under Pep Guardiola.
The Italian had some tough periods with the Foxes despite guiding them to promotion and was even sacked by Parma in 2021 but now walks into even bigger expectations at Chelsea.
Christopher Nkunku on Enzo Maresca
Chelsea have some big friendlies in the coming weeks, taking on the likes of Wrexham, Celtic, Club America, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Inter Milan.
The Blues then open the Premier League season at home to Manchester City, pitting Maresca against his former City mentor Guardiola.
Chelsea will be looking for a strong pre-season to gear up for that game and nobody needs it more than Christopher Nkunku.
The Frenchman managed just two Premier League games and an additional nine substitute appearances after joining from RB Leipzig.
Guardiola is a huge fan of Nkunku but injuries meant that Chelsea just didn’t see enough of him last season.
Now hopefully refreshed having not been a part of the France squad at Euro 2024, Nkunku has reflected on the start to life under Maresca.
Nkunku has told Chelsea’s official website that he thinks Maresca’s ideas are ‘very good’ and everybody is happy to be training under him.
Nkunku feels that Chelsea will play good football if everybody buys into Maresca’s ideas, adding that the Italian made it clear on day one that he wants to keep the ball as much as possible in training and in games.
“The new head coach brings very good ideas to play,” said Nkunku. “We are all happy to practice every training with him. Now it is just the beginning. We need to learn and to fix in every training the way he wants us to play. We are on this way to learn. If everybody has the idea of the coach to play, we will produce good football this year.’”
“We are playing with the ball already a lot. As he told us the first day, he wants us to be on the pitch to practice football training directly. His idea is to keep the ball, so we are practicing that now,” he added.
Nkunku can still shine for Chelsea
It’s fair to say that Nkunku’s debut season was a major disappointment.
Nkunku built up quite the reputation in Germany, racking up goals for fun in an RB Leipzig shirt.
However, an injury just before the 2022 World Cup has sparked a spate of injuries for Nkunku and some may fear that those woes will continue to haunt him.
A full pre-season and some rest after the end of the season may really helped Nkunku though.
Whether it’s as a number 10 or as a striker, Nkunku poses major goal threat; as we saw against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Liverpool and Brighton and Hove Albion last season.
If Nkunku can stay fit, he can still become a real favourite at Stamford Bridge – and possibly one of Maresca’s most important players alongside Cole Palmer.
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