Chelsea have decided who they want to replace Mauricio Pochettino as their new manager – completing their search in a week.
The West London giants parted ways with Pochettino as the Premier League season ended and they already had a good idea of who they wanted, having begun due diligence on replacements weeks ago.
Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna and Brentford’s Thomas Frank were amongst the leading candidates, but they have now decided that Enzo Maresca is their man. HITC revealed last week that Chelsea were keen to open talks with Leicester.
Enzo Maresca set to take charge of Chelsea
HITC can reveal that Chelsea have agreed terms with Enzo Maresca to take charge at Stamford Bridge.
Talks between Chelsea and Leicester City are ongoing, but the Championship winners have known the Italian was close to moving to join the capital outfit for the last few days.
Chelsea are now putting the finishing touches to a compensation package and HITC is told that the club hope to announce his appointment by the start of June.
Maresca is leaving Leicester just less than 12-months after he arrived at the club last summer from Manchester City – where he was one of Pep Guardiola’s assistants.
The former Juventus and West Bromwich Albion midfielder, also spurned the chance to return to Sevilla as their boss in recent weeks as he knew he was in-line to move to one of the Premier League’s most talked about positions.
Maresca, when joining Leicester last summer, admits his experiences with working some of the games top manager – including Pep Guardiola – have shaped him.
“I’ve been lucky, I’ve worked under Ancelotti, Lippi, Manuel Pellegrini, all fantastic managers, but in terms of understanding the game, Pep has 100 per cent had an impact on me,” he told Sky Sports.
“It helps a lot having worked with the kinds of people [I have worked with]. You learn things and at the end you create your own idea as a manager and as a person. It’s just something gradual.
“The first idea was probably born when I faced Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona team as a player, that was the first time I realised something different happened and I was curious to understand, so I started analysing games and from there taking things from different managers. In the end you create your own idea.”
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