Chelsea's New Year's Surprise Awaits Manchester City

MANCHESTER, SATURDAY — Following the shocking dismissal of coach Enzo Maresca that surprised the football world at the turn of the new year, Chelsea will visit the home of Manchester City. Chelsea indeed appears to be in a fragile state at the moment, but they will be very difficult to predict.

Chelsea's top officials are fully aware of the consequences of Maresca's dismissal. "The Blues" are not only losing a quality coach who brought home the Club World Cup trophy. They will also be visiting the Etihad Stadium in Manchester without a permanent coach on Monday (5/1/2026) at 00:30 WIB.

Chelsea will be led by Callum McFarlane, the U-21 team coach. "It has been a crazy 24 hours, like a storm, as you can imagine, but also very enjoyable. An extraordinary experience," said McFarlane, who had to replace his access card first in order to enter the press conference room.

McFarlane has never led a senior team throughout his coaching career. He only joined Chelsea's youth team last summer. Previously, the Englishman worked as a coach for the U-18 and U-21 teams at Southampton for two years.

Interestingly, McFarlane will reunite with City Manager Pep Guardiola. He previously worked at City from 2021 to 2023 as an assistant coach for the U-18 team. Their differences are quite stark. While Guardiola has already led over 1,000 matches, McFarlane is about to make his debut.

"I am quite relaxed. I am confident that as we get closer to the match, the atmosphere will become more intense. I have never worked at this level before, but the players are fantastic and we will do it together. We come without any burden," said McFarlane.

Although it may seem less convincing, Chelsea has the potential to surprise. Cole Palmer and his teammates will experience a new atmosphere without Maresca. They are also looking to break a poor trend, having won only one out of seven league matches, which led to the dismissal of the previous coach.

Chelsea, which has the youngest squad average age of 23.7 years, can also return to play freely. As is known, their performance drastically declined after being labeled as "championship contenders" when they managed to draw against Arsenal with ten players. Now, that burden of expectation has collapsed.

Coincidentally, Maresca's record is also quite poor when facing his mentor, Guardiola. Chelsea suffered consecutive defeats against City, both at home and away, last season. They conceded league goals in those two matches while managing to score only one goal. Maresca's presence did not help.

McFarlane prefers the 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 formation. This pattern is exactly the same as that used by Maresca. The question mark regarding the interim coach is more about player selection. One of the decisions he must make is regarding the substitute for midfielder Moises Caicedo, who is absent due to a card accumulation.

For Guardiola, the influence of the coach is very important in major matches. Therefore, he was reluctant to speak much about the match against Chelsea during the press conference on Friday. At that time, the manager did not yet know who the figure of the coach leading the visiting team would be.

"We will not say much if we do not know which manager will be there, and I do not know what will happen. Chelsea has always been dangerous, and the Premier League is always perilous in every match," said Guardiola, who was very disappointed after being held to a draw by Sunderland in the last match.

Guardiola is instead more interested in discussing Maresca. According to him, his former student deserves to be given more opportunities. "From my perspective, Chelsea has lost an extraordinary coach and a great human being. However, that is a decision made by Chelsea's management," he stated.

The Spanish manager also dismissed rumors regarding his future at City. It has been reported that Maresca will continue Guardiola's leadership, who is set to leave next summer. Guardiola emphasized that he will honor his contract, which is set to expire in the summer of 2027.

Meanwhile, Chelsea's management is still busy searching for a permanent replacement for the head coach position. Liam Rosenior, a young coach from the French club RC Strasbourg, has emerged as the strongest candidate. The transfer will not be difficult as Strasbourg is under the same ownership group as Chelsea.

Rosenior, 41, did not deny the rumors of a move. "In life, there are no guarantees. You never know what will happen tomorrow. I'm just doing my job. I don't want to guarantee how long I'll be here," he told L'Euqippe. (AP/REUTERS)