Enzo Maresca New Leicester Manager

[RowlattsFox]

3 minutes ago, AmarteyAndChill said:

6th? if we are hovering around 6th the fanbase will already be so toxic. With our resources we should be promoted automatically, anything else will be a total shambles imo.

Well this kind of proves my point and highlights that Enzo has to succeed. As soon as we have a bad run, he will be under pressure. 

[inckley fox]

7 minutes ago, Gamble92 said:

I just think it's a case of saying thanks to the likes of Stowell and Rudkin and moving on. Whether you blame them or not. I think they've both been lucky to have had great people around but like you say none of us know anything for sure. I just think this is the chance now to start anew. 

 

They'll stay though unfortunately. 

You know, you could well be right. Maybe it is time for a totally fresh start. I'm just not sure that we need to point the finger at people who've had very hands-on roles in our success, while Top and his cronies blithely go on, assured of their Midas touch, designing their own statues and generally repeating the same mistakes they've been making for ages.

 

Back to Maresca, though, and I'll be fully behind him. I have my doubts because very, very few promoted managers have as little experience as him. Many relegated managers do. And assistants who become successful more often than not gain internal promotions, and fail when they're exported. And it smacks of further cost-cutting by an ownership in which I've lost all faith; and it also suggests confidence that their convictions haven't been shaken at all.

 

But that doesn't change the fact that he may well, in spite of everything, be the right man. And needs our full support. Stowell too, if he remains!

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, RowlattsFox said:

Well this kind of proves my point and highlights that Enzo has to succeed. As soon as we have a bad run, he will be under pressure. 

But surely position in the table must be secondary to fostering a spirit from the get go, ascent of the table will naturally follow if we regain some level of spirit and fight, and hopefully some innovation and nous from Maresca.  We had all the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s we could ever want last season, now we need to see actual direction, graft and belief.

[filbertway]

22 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Like it or not we need to be in and around the top 6 from the word go. Anything less and fans will be all over him. Hopefully we can play nice football but it has to get results. Anyone that says they will give him time if we are playing good football is lying.

 

 

Speak for yourself but you definitely don't speak for me.

 

Process over results for me everytime. If the process is good the results will inevitably follow. You'll also continue to improve rather than be boom or bust.

 

 

You are correct that the vast majority are results driven though.

[MPH]

so I’d be interested to know… did he apply for the job or did we approach him?

 

 

 

I don’t suppose it matters but I did hear he interviewed brilliantly…

[Bilo]

I find the false choice that people are positing between good football with the right philosophy and an immediate promotion a bit odd.

 

Burnley played some lovely stuff this season and dominated the league. and

 

Yet when Kompany arrived, they had fewer players left than we're likely to have once the comings and goings are settled, fewer resources, inferior facilities to train in and a footballing philosophy from Sean Dyche - a manager whose playing style is about as far removed from disciples of Guardiola as it's possible to get. Plenty thought they'd take years to come back. Some even thought they'd get relegated.

[inckley fox]

1 minute ago, Dahnsouff said:

But surely position in the table must be secondary to fostering a spirit from the get go, ascent of the table will naturally follow if we regain some level of spirit and fight, and hopefully some innovation and nous from Maresca.  We had all the shoulda, woulda, coulda’s we could ever want last season, now we need to see actual direction, graft and belief.

I hope there's that sort of patience. 1-3 year projects tend to reap greater long-term dividends than short-termism. A mid-table finish this year might not be as awful as we think, if the signs are there of something which can grow. If it's all quick-fix stuff - loanees left and right, veteran signings etc. - then there'll rightly be pressure for things to work out in a timely fashion. And I suppose that a manager with less obvious pedigree will be questioned sooner than one who has been there, done that, and so on. Wrongly, perhaps - and I suspect that many of these people who are ecstatic with the appointment because they think it can lead us to a quick revival would be turning on him, if it got off to a shaky start, long before me - but that's also inevitable.

[RowlattsFox]

24 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Speak for yourself but you definitely don't speak for me.

 

Process over results for me everytime. If the process is good the results will inevitably follow. You'll also continue to improve rather than be boom or bust.

 

 

You are correct that the vast majority are results driven though.

Fair play to you, if you genuinely won't be calling for his head if we are midtable after a third of the season. 

 

Whatever the process is, it has to have us challenging. 

[Koke]

He at least acknowledged that we are a big club. Previous managers would downplay us, but we're achieved enough this past decade that people respect us.

[foxfan92]

6 hours ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

A lot of the success we had during Pearson’s time in league 1 and the championship included a healthy smattering of young loan players from premier league teams. Jack Hobbs, Jay Spearing, Martyn Waghorn, Tom Cleverley and Mark Davies to name a few. It’s a model that has served us well at this level and I am more than happy for us to use that path again and I imagine Maresca’s contacts will mean we could attract some exciting prospects. 

Like I said it'll bring in some talent and competition for players and a stronger squad. I'm just unhappy were back to having to do this.

[Finnegan]

1 hour ago, KingsX said:

Just a week ago, the Glasgow Herald was bigging Maresca up as Celtic’s ideal Postecoglou replacement.  (Any chance he was their man, too, but we got there first with an offer Celtic couldn’t match??   So the best they can do is our mutual ex.)

 

Whatever.  The article gives a view of Maresca’s time at Parma you may find worth reading.

 

Maresca has had one job as a first-team manager, and it lasted for just 14 matches. Shortly before Postecoglou arrived in Glasgow, Maresca departed the Etihad for a return to his homeland in May 2021.

His task: elevate a once proud club back to Serie A, and quickly. I Crociati had suffered through a thoroughly miserable 2020/21 season, plummeting out of Italy’s top-flight at rock bottom having won a paltry three league matches all season.

They were comparative heavyweights in the second tier, but Maresca did not meet the brief of producing instant results and he was brutally sacked a month before Christmas. He faced criticism for using players out of position, and of adopting a tactical approach that did not align with the profile of player at his disposal.

At face value, it is a considerable blot on his CV, and one which has raised questions as to his suitability for managing Celtic, where he would be expected to win every single domestic fixture.

Conor Clancy, co-founder of Total Italian Football, was among the journalists covering Maresca’s brief tenure up close, and believes there was more to how things unfolded than the unflattering numbers.

“I was impressed by his ideas,” said Clancy. “He was very keen to play football the way you’d expect anybody who’s worked with Pep to play football. Adrian Bernabe, for example, came to Parma from City and it was obviously because Maresca was there.

“He came in as this tricky little number 10 and Maresca played him, basically, between centre-backs when in possession. Valentin Mihaila, who was somewhere between a striker and a winger, he played him as a full-back.

“There was very much this approach of ‘everybody on the pitch is a footballer, first and foremost’. It wasn’t always that well-received. But to be fair to him, that Parma job was difficult when he took it.

“They’d just gone down to Serie B and nobody really knew what was happening. The squad was thrown together with mostly young kids who had never played first-team football before, Bernabe being one of them. He’s still here and loved by the fans.

“It didn’t last long. But that he was dismissed and replaced by Giuseppe Iachini, who I’d call the Italian Tony Pulis, shows Parma didn’t really know what they were doing at the time.

“He felt like the right man at the wrong time. If he’d come to this job with the players there now – it’s not a perfect squad but they are more established in Italy – I think he’d do a much better job.”

Maresca’s arrival in Parma was brewed scepticism among sections of the football media. His reputation as a new-age ‘philosopher’ coach did not sit awfully well the more hardened members of the press.

“Some of the old guard of the press who have been going to games here for longer than I’ve been alive were a bit resistant to him being seen as one of ‘Pep’s disciples’, and the way they are spoken about,” Clancy explained. “Even the term ‘disciples’, it comes with a certain expectation, especially coming from Pep, and it’s often met with some resistance.

“Even now you can see it with Mikel Arteta, people talked about him as if he’s not a ‘proper football man’. There was that impression here with Maresca.”

But while he may not have curried much favour in the press box, he made an entirely different impression on the players.

“The players loved him,” Clancy said. “When Maresca was sacked, a lot of the players were annoyed, particularly the younger ones. It was a pretty international squad, and Maresca speaks French, Italian, Spanish, English and possibly a few others.

“On the training ground, he was communicating his ideas to all these kids in whatever language they preferred to speak in, while also encouraging Italian use. When he was replaced, a lot of players had these little secret meetings around Parma; they were driving to car parks to basically moan about how the club had f****d them over by replacing this really young guy that they all loved with someone who was the exact opposite.

“The Celtic fans would probably like him; he’d make an impression and communicate his ideas really well. I just think the timing was it – he needed more time. I really, really do think if he had been given more time last the year, the results would have come.

“You can’t just implement that within two months. They did get worse without him; Iacchini came in and went for a back-to-basics, ‘big Sam’ approach.

“He ended up leaving with a bit of credit because he was seen to have steadied the ship but the points-per-game ratio was worse under Iachini, and he didn’t really have any ideas. Maresca was trying to build towards something.”

If Postecoglou had not kept in touch with Rangers at the Premiership summit during a bumpy first few months, who knows if the Parkhead board’s trigger-finger would have grown as itchy as Parma’s. But Celtic are a club who now know the value of allowing a manager sufficient time to build, on the obvious proviso that results do not become completely unacceptable.

“Having heard the stories I have from players, I know they liked him – the young players did, at least. The players who were the right fit for him, liked him – even if they weren’t playing. I think that says a lot.”

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/23575009.enzo-maresca-celtic-parallel-ange-insider-lifts-lid-parma/

 

 

One thing about Maresca's appointment is that we'll have to recruit well. We'll need quality footballers at 10, 8 and both wings. It's gonna be challenging. 

 

We can probably field a team tomorrow that's 352, fairly direct, athletic, mobile, attacking. But it won't suit his style at all. 

[The Horse's Mouth]

54 minutes ago, RowlattsFox said:

Like it or not we need to be in and around the top 6 from the word go. Anything less and fans will be all over him. Hopefully we can play nice football but it has to get results. Anyone that says they will give him time if we are playing good football is lying.

 

Yes I want to use his contacts wisely but we need to be looking at building our squad for the Premier league, signing players on permanent contracts that can grow with the team. Not just loan signings. 

Pretty much, the remit of playing nice football and doing average would’ve been perfectly fine had we remained in the league. The idea of trust the process and time and patience, just doesn’t apply here. We need to be ruthless, the time for a long term plan of giving him time is just not an option, if we bounce up immediately I think we’d be in reasonably good stead to recruitment well.We’ve effectively got two shots at going back up, soon as the parachute payments are nearing the end and we’re still in the same division hello to the blue stoke city.

[filbertway]

1 minute ago, RowlattsFox said:

Fair play to you, if you genuinely won't be calling for his head if we are midtable after a third of the season. 

 

Whatever the process is, it has to have us challenging. 

Its all about the whole thing for me. If I see improvements being made overall then form over a small amount of games means nothing to me.

 

Improvements in recruitment, players looking fitter, injuries reducing, players looking more up for it, desire to improve academy recruitment and pathway. 

 

If I see things like this that will inevitably lead to progress down the road, I can easily show patience with matters on the pitch.

 

If were signing duffers, players look unfit and disinterested, the football is terrible and were getting panned then ill also be quick to say that its clearly not working out.

 

I cut Puel much more slack than most for this reason. 

 

 

[The Horse's Mouth]

1 hour ago, Vazman said:

I never mentioned anything about Stowell, read the post properly, I merely stated off the back off a post that suggested he'd become a couch potato. Ward is dogs, the only thing I agree on and never said anything different to suggest otherwise is that he was never going to dislodge Kasper.

 

Ward was very secondary in the discussion though, the geezer I was replying to was effectively blaming Stowell for Ward being utter dogshit which makes literally zero sense.

[Babylon]

1 hour ago, mozartfox said:

Are you related to Stowell by chance??

No I’m just averse to people talking out of their arses and over reacting like a bunch of little man babies. 

[Babylon]

2 hours ago, smudger63 said:

Lets put it this way, if a goalkeeper coach, believes that a keeper he is coaching is not of the required standard, then he should be making it known as soon as he has formed that opinion to the manager.

That will be part of his remit, to keep the manager informed of the form and abilty of the keepers he is coaching.

So if has done that, and said to Rodgers that Ward is Shite and needs binning, then fair play, its all on Rodgers, if he didnt, then Stowell is culpable by not telling it like it is.

 

 

So why are you even bringing it up as a reason to slate him when you have zero idea what’s been said?

[Bilo]

 

19 minutes ago, Koke said:

He at least acknowledged that we are a big club. Previous managers would downplay us, but we're achieved enough this past decade that people respect us.

It's a fine line for me between expectation management and defeatism. Rodgers ended up polevaulting into the latter far too frequently. 

 

Expectation management is still important in our position now. Norwich, Leeds, Southampton, West Brom, Ipswich, Sunderland and Boro will all fancy their chances. Coventry as well if they keep Gyokeres and Hamer somehow. It won't be easy. 

 

But all of those clubs will be looking at us as the team to beat. That's not arrogance, that's what fans of those clubs are saying. Most neutrals see us as the favourites to win the division and so will a lot of prospective players in the transfer market. We're not the Leicester City of 2004-2008, nor even the Leicester City of 2009-2014 even if we are in the same division. I'm glad that Maresca gets that and hope he conveys it to the whole club.

 

 

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, Babylon said:

No I’m just averse to people talking out of their arses and over reacting like a bunch of little man babies. 

Mmmmmmmmmmmm man babies

 

 

[urban.spaceman]

@Ric Flair Hope you got a good price for it!

 

 

[Flingsofdeonjnr]

First post in years and forgot my username 😂Fantastic appointment. No Preki, but next best thing. 

 

To the tune of 2 Unlimited’s No Limit:

 

https://youtu.be/r6FVk2k4qsM

 

ENZO

ENZO ENZO

ENZO ENZO

ENZO ENZO MA- RES-CA

 

No no limit, he’ll reach for the sky, Leicester City’s so big, he’ll get them to fly

 

No no limit he won’t give up the fight, he’ll win when he wants and he’ll do it in style 

 

😉

[KingsX]

1 hour ago, MPH said:

so I’d be interested to know… did he apply for the job or did we approach him?

 

 

   ... next question.

[AjcW]

18 minutes ago, Babylon said:

No I’m just averse to people talking out of their arses and over reacting like a bunch of little man babies. 

THEM babies!!!!!!

[Beachyboy]

1 hour ago, filbertway said:

Speak for yourself but you definitely don't speak for me.

 

Process over results for me everytime. If the process is good the results will inevitably follow. You'll also continue to improve rather than be boom or bust.

 

 

You are correct that the vast majority are results driven though.

The process was awful for 2 years masked by an 8th place finish and a European semi final at the end of last season. Probably also masked by the 5th place and the FA cup win, bar a few exceptional performances here and there. Results will improve if the process is right like you say, but results will inevitability deteriote, as has been the case over the last 2 years if the process is wrong.

[HankMarvin]

1 hour ago, Bilo said:

I find the false choice that people are positing between good football with the right philosophy and an immediate promotion a bit odd.

 

Burnley played some lovely stuff this season and dominated the league. and

 

Yet when Kompany arrived, they had fewer players left than we're likely to have once the comings and goings are settled, fewer resources, inferior facilities to train in and a footballing philosophy from Sean Dyche - a manager whose playing style is about as far removed from disciples of Guardiola as it's possible to get. Plenty thought they'd take years to come back. Some even thought they'd get relegated.

They were 7/2 for promotion in June last year 

Edited 17 June 2023 by HankMarvin

[jerry]

39 minutes ago, Bilo said:

 

It's a fine line for me between expectation management and defeatism. Rodgers ended up polevaulting into the latter far too frequently. 

 

Expectation management is still important in our position now. Norwich, Leeds, Southampton, West Brom, Ipswich, Sunderland and Boro will all fancy their chances. Coventry as well if they keep Gyokeres and Hamer somehow. It won't be easy. 

 

But all of those clubs will be looking at us as the team to beat. That's not arrogance, that's what fans of those clubs are saying. Most neutrals see us as the favourites to win the division and so will a lot of prospective players in the transfer market. We're not the Leicester City of 2004-2008, nor even the Leicester City of 2009-2014 even if we are in the same division. I'm glad that Maresca gets that and hope he conveys it to the whole club.

 

 

Believe the squad we are going to be left with is very average even by championship standards. Not optimistic until I see who is going to come in.