Marc Cucurella disagreed with Chelsea’s decision to sack Enzo Maresca
The Chelsea full-back said he would ‘not have made this decision’ to part ways with Maresca, adding that it had ‘a big impact’ on the squad
Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella has said the club made the wrong decision in parting ways with Enzo Maresca in January, with the Spaniard blaming “the instability around the club” on the former manager’s departure . Maresca left Chelsea at the beginning of the year after a breakdown in relations between himself and the club’s hierarchy, with Liam Rosenior appointed as his successor just a few days later. And while Rosenior got off to a positive start at Stamford Bridge, results have tailed off in recent weeks, culminating in losses to Newcastle and Everton as well as a record-equalling 8-2 aggregate defeat at the hands of PSG in the Champions League.
Those results leave Chelsea outside of the Champions League qualification places, with the Blues sitting sixth in the Premier League, one point behind fifth-placed Liverpool. “The moment Maresca left, it had a big impact on us,” Cucurella said in an interview with The Athletic . “These are decisions taken by the club.
If you asked me, I would not have made this decision. “To make a change like that, the best thing is to wait until the end of the season. You would give everyone, the players and the new manager, time to get ready, have a full pre-season.
“The instability around the club comes from this, in a nutshell. We had a caretaker [former under-21s coach Calum McFarlane] first, then a new manager, with new ideas and no time to work on them. It is what it is.