Marc Cucurella criticises Chelsea for sacking Enzo Maresca: 'I would have died for him' | OneFootball

Defender says Liam Rosenior is struggling to implement his methods

Marc Cucurella has criticised Chelsea for changing managers midway through the season.

Calum McFarlane, the club’s Under-21s head coach, took temporary charge of the Blues’ next two first-team games, before Liam Rosenior was appointed as the new full-time head coach after impressing as manager of Chelsea’s sister club, Strasbourg.

While Rosenior’s tenure started well, Chelsea have since been knocked out of the Champions League and Carabao Cup and lost their last four matches in a row in all competitions.

Speaking to The Athletic while on international duty with Spain, Cucurella said: “Liam is a very good person and has been great at handling the group, the characters.

“He likes to stay close to us, and his football ideas are good, but we don’t have the time to train them.

“We train on competitive games, because we play every three days, and that leaves you with no time to work on the training ground. In this context, it is normal that your plans sometimes don’t work out, and then we go through difficult moments.”

When a manager gives you that confidence and offers you a platform to fight for titles, you’d die for him

Marc Cucurella on Enzo Maresca

Cucurella was fond of Maresca, who he described as “the most important” of the six permanent managers he has worked under at Chelsea.

The left-back added: “With Enzo Maresca in charge, we were more stable, because we worked together for 18 months. If you look at our first pre-season with him, there were doubts. You need a process for every player to understand what we need to do.

“In our last months with Maresca, we played almost by heart. If we changed the system, we knew what we had to do. You need that time.

“Look at Arsenal now, who are fighting for every trophy. They’ve been with [Mikel] Arteta for almost seven years and they have not won much. But that trust in the project gives rewards.

“We knew what Maresca wanted from us,” he said. “Winning a title like the Club World Cup also helps, strengthens the bond, and you create great relationships during the celebrations. When a manager gives you that confidence and offers you a platform to fight for titles, you’d die for him.

“The moment Maresca left, it had a big impact on us. 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 manager first, then a new manager, with new ideas and no time to work on them. It is what it is.”