Football managers lead uncertain lives. Especially when they have been hired by big clubs. Owners and fans have short memories. A string of middling results is all it takes for speculation about a manager’s future to run wild. Before long, the rumours become reality.
Arne Slot guided Liverpool to a Premier League title in 2024-25 and was sacked a season later because the Reds finished fifth. Every manager who accepts a position at a top club is aware of its perils, but the challenge, the opportunity and the reward the job offers are irresistible.
Recruitment season
The latest to sign up for this life in England are Xabi Alonso, Andoni Iraola and Enzo Maresca. The three men are linked, having been part of a hot-seat shuffle. Maresca exited Chelsea, which hired Alonso, who many thought was a favourite to take the reins at Liverpool, which recruited Iraola, who was also interviewed by Chelsea.
Chelsea has tasked Alonso with reviving its fortunes after a turbulent, trophy-less season. The 44-year-old Spaniard is the fifth permanent appointment under Chelsea’s big-spending BlueCo ownership, following Graham Potter, Mauricio Pochettino, Maresca and Liam Rosenior.
Coached by Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti, Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez, Alonso rose to prominence at Bayer Leverkusen, where he guided the club to a historic unbeaten Bundesliga title in the 2023-24 campaign, along with the German Cup and a run to the Europa League final.
Alonso, who had cut his coaching teeth at Real Madrid (youth academy) and Real Sociedad (reserve team), demonstrated his prowess as an adroit tactician in Germany. Having to combat a Bayern Munich side with better players and bigger resources, he fashioned inventive solutions. His ideas were modern and progressive, bolstered by a rigorous structure.
That success earned him a return to Real Madrid as head coach, but his spell was reportedly affected by internal tensions, including clashes with several senior players such as Federico Valverde and Vinicius Jr. He was sacked in January, less than eight months after taking charge.
Understandably, Alonso had reservations about the Chelsea job. The club has spent 1.8 billion pounds on signings since BlueCo took charge in 2022, but the money has yielded neither stability nor progress. He reportedly needed reassurance from the club’s top brass that he would have real influence at Stamford Bridge after his disillusioning Madrid experience.
According to The Athletic, Alonso signalled his desire to build a team of “mentality monsters”, capable of establishing themselves at the top of the Premier League. “There is great talent in the squad,” he said. “Now the focus is on hard work, building the right culture and winning trophies.”
High-octane: Andoni Iraola’s success at implementing a high-pressing, quick-attacking style was a decisive factor in Liverpool choosing him.
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It will be interesting to witness Alonso’s tactical approach at Chelsea. During his career, he has employed both a back three (3-4-3) and a back four (4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-4-2). A common coaching intention, irrespective of formation, is his emphasis on central progression and penetration.
Alonso demands a lot from his players; indeed, his ‘failure’ at Madrid, experts felt, was a consequence of the attacking superstars refusing to work without the ball. Will he be able to convince the Chelsea squad to run all game in the Premier League, which has become even more physical and intense?
One advantage Alonso has is a light fixture schedule, with Chelsea missing out on Europe. This means more time on the training ground to seed his ideas. He will also have a fresher squad than England’s other big clubs — a considerable advantage in a packed post-World Cup season.
Ticking the right boxes
While many expected Alonso to head to Merseyside to replace Slot, given the former midfielder’s playing history at Liverpool, the Reds chose a different Basque-born coach. Iraola, who oversaw a significant upturn in Bournemouth’s fortunes, getting the side to compete with bigger, richer clubs despite routinely losing its best players, ticked the right boxes for Liverpool.
His success at implementing a high-pressing and progressive style of football, centred around attacking swiftly, was a decisive factor in his appointment. That approach, Liverpool’s bosses thought, would work well at Liverpool, renowned for its high-octane brand of football under Jurgen Klopp, a style that the great Mohamed Salah urged the club to revive.
Indeed, the more sedate football under Slot in 2025-26 was a major reason for the club losing faith in him. That is unlikely to be a problem with Iraola. The 43-year-old’s influences include former Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde and the messianic Marcelo Bielsa, but his approach is uniquely his own: a disruptive, hard-running, direct style.
“We like to attack fast, use the width of the pitch, overlaps and a lot of crosses, high press,” Iraola once said about his teams. “Most of the games we win are the more open ones, where there are more chances, where we can exploit one-on-one situations on the outside and find wider spaces.” Those words could well be used to describe a Klopp side!
Iraola faces a challenging task of resuscitating Liverpool, while also having to contend with the absence of Salah, who had been the club’s main source of goals for the better part of the past decade. In Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike, Iraola has access to some of the most expensive, elite attacking talent in football, but he will have to maximise them.
The high-profile job also represents a significant step up for the young manager, who excelled in underdog situations at Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth. How will he handle the expectations at one of Europe’s biggest clubs?
Following Pep: Enzo Maresca has the thankless job of filling Pep Guardiola’s shoes, but his time as the Spaniard’s assistant at City grants him an advantage.
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In some aspects, Maresca has the trickiest assignment of the three. There is the thankless task of filling Guardiola’s shoes, but the uncertainty ahead of the season is an even bigger wrinkle.
Manchester City and Chelsea have been locked in negotiations over a compensation package following Maresca’s dramatic departure from Chelsea in January after talking about “the worst 48 hours” of his tenure. Chelsea’s awareness of City’s interest in Maresca back in October, when he was still contracted at Stamford Bridge, has made it a complicated situation.
City also awaits the verdict on the 115 charges of alleged breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules. Some reports in the English media have claimed that the verdict will be out in the summer; if that transpires, Maresca will have to deal with a situation he has little control over.
The Guardiola question
The Italian will have certain comforts to fall back on. He was a part of City’s backroom staff under Guardiola when the club won the treble in 2023, so he knows the set-up. His style is heavily inspired by Guardiola’s fundamental tenets, built on the ideas of positional play. But Guardiola changed to a less controlled, more direct style, even using a shot-stopper in Gianluigi Donnarumma, who isn’t comfortable with the ball at his feet. Which path will Maresca pick?
Guardiola has backed his former assistant, but as those who succeeded Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger found out, replacing a generational manager is a daunting prospect.
