I saw Enzo Maresca up close – this is what he will bring to Manchester City… if they can resist Chelsea court battle: The City star who’s perfect for ‘Diet Pep’, the player spats and just how far back his dalliance to replace Guardiola goes

After all that guzzling on champagne football over the last decade, it is time for change at Manchester City. So what will it be? ‘Diet Pep’, please, barkeep.

Enzo Maresca never did like the nickname. Told us reporters so during an interview on his first pre-season tour with Chelsea in the United States. Reckoned it was because he is bald, has a beard, and is very close to Pep Guardiola, his friend with whom he had just gotten off the phone as we sat down to speak in the cigar bar of the St Regis Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was a lazy comparison, apparently, but City seem to think there is something to it. They see Maresca as someone worthy of replacing Guardiola, presumably on the outgoing manager’s recommendation, like when Sir Alex Ferguson endorsed David Moyes at Manchester United in 2013.

It is the most colossal challenge in football today. As big as trying to succeed Ferguson. Around Chelsea, though, they will consider this official confirmation of a worst-kept secret. City’s interest in Maresca, and his suspected interest in them, was not the only reason why it all blew up between the 46-year-old Italian and Chelsea in December, but it was a contributing factor in the build-up to his New Year’s Day departure.

Three times it is believed Maresca informed Chelsea he was speaking with individuals associated with City – twice in October and once in December after delivering those coded ‘worst 48 hours’ comments following a Premier League home win over Everton. Sources say he was contractually obliged to tell his club about those talks at that time.

We may not have heard the last of this from a Chelsea perspective. He was under contract until 2029 – 2030 if we include his one-year option – while speaking to City.

Enzo Maresca (left), who worked with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, has been nicknamed ‘Diet Pep’ but he thinks the moniker is lazy

Chelsea insiders insist they did not want to lose Maresca and that his departure contributed to the implosion of their season

Then he parted company with Chelsea, with club insiders insisting both then and now that they did not want to make that change and adding it contributed to their season imploding. Now he is set to become City’s new boss this summer as was suspected all along. Legally, Chelsea have been unable to comment on that chaotic Maresca exit, but Daily Mail Sport understands there could be discussion this summer surrounding legal issues to do with compensation.

If nothing else, this makes for a new Premier League rivalry. Anyone else have the hunch that the fixture generator will somehow spit out Chelsea versus City on the first day next season? Yeah, us too.

In Maresca, City see familiarity. He knows them and they know him, not least from when he was Guardiola’s assistant as they won their historic Treble in 2022-23. Perhaps only Mikel Arteta knows the house that Guardiola built better than Maresca. He had to leave to gain experience at the elite level to ever qualify for succeeding Guardiola, and did so, even learning how to handle answering questions on Chelsea’s overspending charges from the footballing authorities along the way.

Maresca is a workaholic. It became a running joke at Chelsea to guess how many games he had watched that week in his spare time. Whether it was Barcelona in the Champions League, Astana in the Conference League or Barrow in the Carabao Cup, he was not fond of surprises, and studied to learn their secrets.

They are used to Guardiola’s football at City, and Maresca is a possession-based, positionally-obsessed, slow-and-steady coach. He may find more patience at the Etihad Stadium than he did at Stamford Bridge, where supporters never truly took to his style. There were groans galore when we would see Robert Sanchez – a goalkeeper who is hardly blessed when the ball is at his feet – passing out from the back.

His 4-2-3-1 formation involved a full back inverting into midfield to leave three at the back, and often, that full back would push all the way up into the No 10 position. Nico O’Reilly may suit that role, and Chelsea were interested in signing him while Maresca was in charge.

Maresca won the Conference League and Club World Cup, and landed a top-four finish in the Premier League, but Chelsea’s fans sang his name more times after he had departed than when he was actually in charge, perhaps seeing him as a figure who finally stood up to their hierarchy.

Internally, Chelsea’s players respected him, especially the Spanish speakers. His training sessions were highly detailed. He even had Cobham resemble a drive-in cinema, with a gigantic television screen wheeled on to the pitch to show his players footage. He used it to help illustrate the precise positions they should be taking up.

But he had his spats. Sources close to Nicolas Jackson once told us he would never play for Chelsea again so long as Maresca was there. You imagine the ‘bomb squad’ members – such as Raheem Sterling, who was told he had an easy life in exile compared to Maresca’s fisherman father – were hardly fans either. Maresca may counter that was a Chelsea problem, and not only to do with him.

We saw that bullish side to him in press conferences also. I remember asking Maresca a question after Chelsea secured Champions League qualification, on the last day of the 2024-25 season away at Nottingham Forest. He used his answer to tell all of his critics to, and I quote, ‘eff off’.

Nico O’Reilly should thrive in Maresca’s 4-2-3-1 system, which allows a full back to drift inside and then push up as far as the No 10 role

Maresca was assistant to Guardiola for the Treble campaign, and knows his new house better than most

He knew when to use us journalists to send a message, though the time he refused to meet the media, after a 0-0 home draw with Bournemouth, was not his finest hour. Chelsea claimed he was feeling too unwell to speak at the time. He wasn’t. That fake illness forced his trusted assistant, Willy Caballero, to fill in instead.

How much power he will wield at City remains to be seen, given Guardiola practically had carte blanche. At Chelsea, Maresca did not appear overly fond of others meddling, including being told who he could and could not play by those in the medical department.

Club sources even claim he occasionally disregarded their advice over how many minutes certain individuals could manage. As well as the flirting with City suggesting his heart was with another club, that was another significant source of tension behind the scenes, and, as Daily Mail Sport reported, the reason for that ‘worst 48 hours’ outburst in December.

After Daily Mail Sport tried to encourage Maresca to do an interview after he had exited Chelsea, he texted us back to say it was not yet the time, but that everything would become clear in the future. Those around Stamford Bridge will believe City hiring him as Guardiola’s replacement is indeed proof of what they suspected all along.