As Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca seemingly closes in on the Chelsea job, his past comments from his time managing Parma now seem quite pertinent.

Chelsea’s search to replace Mauricio Pochettino has seemingly come to an end if reports are to be believed.

Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna was in the running, but Chelsea ultimately decided to go with a man trained by Pep Guardiola.

That route has certainly worked for Arsenal, who nabbed Mikel Arteta having also been assistant to Guardiola.

And Chelsea will be hoping that Enzo Maresca can deliver a similar level of success in west London.

Ultimately it would appear that Maresca was deemed a more agreeable candidate than Roberto De Zerbi, who endured a fractious end to his time at Brighton & Hove Albion.

And perhaps Brentford’s Thomas Frank wouldn’t have been deemed an ambitious appointment for a club who had just parted ways with Pochettino.

All that being said, and with Maresca possibly set to take charge in the coming days, his comments on his previous ‘failure’ at Parma are now interesting to read.

Enzo Maresca suggested Parma failure was because club signed too many new players

Maresca was in charge of Parma for 14 games before he was sacked back in 2021, which then led to him becoming Manchester City’s assistant.

Speaking about the debacle after accepting the Leicester City job last year, Maresca appeared to blame the amount of new signings the club had made.

The manager suggested he found it very difficult to coach the young team with an ‘international environment.’

Speaking via Gazzetta, Maresca admitted: “I liked the idea of returning to Italy after so many years, I accepted with enthusiasm and at City they understood and supported me.

“Unfortunately, it didn’t go as I hoped. We signed 14 new players, it was a young team with an international environment, I was training in four languages, and it wasn’t so quick to get certain concepts across.

“The start was difficult and from the outside there was a tendency to always see the glass as half empty. It ended after 13 games and I was very sorry, I still think we were on the right track.”

Is Maresca actually an upgrade on Pochettino for Chelsea?

Of course, given Chelsea have a very young squad, one that was built extremely quickly with an influx of signings last summer, fans of the club may be slightly concerned.

Maresca has perhaps allayed those fears with his excellent work at Leicester, when he definitely managed to create a strong squad spirit.

And to that end, it should also be appreciated that Maresca worked alongside Guardiola for 61 games after that experience, and appeared to learn a lot.

But despite having all that success, the Chelsea job will represent a big step up for the 44-year-old, who has never managed in a top flight before.

Perhaps some fans will still question the merits of effectively paying for the pleasure of swapping Pochettino for Maresca, a manager with a lot less experience.

But the Chelsea hierarchy considered their relationship with Pochettino as untenable, and will be hoping for a more harmonious future with Maresca should he be appointed.