“Manchester United called…” – Chelsea beat rivals to crucial deal this summer | OneFootball

Football journalist Guillem Balague has spoken exclusively to the Debrief podcast about Enzo Maresca’s promising start to life as Chelsea manager and interest from Manchester United this summer.

Maresca impressed at Leicester City in his single season in charge and he’s also looked like he has the potential to do very promising things with Chelsea now.

Balague knows a lot about Maresca and his methods, and also shed some light into how the Italian tactician ended up joining Chelsea despite Man United also asking about him.

It seems the Red Devils’ interest came too late, with things already advanced with Chelsea at that point, but it’s interesting to think that he could have ended up at Old Trafford instead.

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca applauds the club’s fans (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

United stuck with Erik ten Hag at that time, but he made a poor start to the season and was recently sacked, with Ruben Amorim now coming in and preparing for his first game in charge this weekend.

Chelsea will therefore be doubly glad they were able to be fast on this one and hire Maresca ahead of their rivals.

Enzo Maresca was a target for Man United, but they called too late…

Speaking on today’s Debrief episode, Balague said: “The profile that Chelsea were looking for also fitted with Enzo, because they were looking for a young manager with the right ideas that will work with the structure of the club.

“And will work with young people, and will not be kind of doing politics to try to get more players or the kind of things that sometimes breaks relationships.

“So…they had all of that in Enzo. And if there was proof that his profile was sought after, that just before he shook hands with Chelsea, Manchester United called. And it was too late.”

United will surely be happy to have landed Amorim now after his impressive work at Sporting, but it’s also clear they missed out on a top coach in Maresca.