Chelsea's incoming new head coach has reportedly signed his contract with the Blues and will be unveiled as their manager on Monday.
Despite several teething problems in his debut campaign, Mauricio Pochettino oversaw a positive end to the 2023-24 season, culminating in the Blues' qualification for the Europa Conference League.
Chelsea also made it to the final of the 2023-24 EFL Cup - losing to Liverpool at Wembley - and the former Tottenham Hotspur boss was seemingly set to continue in his role for the 2024-25 campaign.
However, to the bewilderment of Blues fans and players, Chelsea announced that they had mutually parted ways with Pochettino last month, the third permanent manager to be fired since Todd Boehly's consortium took charge.
After whittling down their list of suitable and indeed available candidates, Chelsea settled on Leicester City's promotion-winning manager Enzo Maresca as their preferred choice and moved quickly to strike an agreement.
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Enzo Maresca 'signs long-term Chelsea deal'
According to The Athletic, the former Manchester City assistant has now penned his Chelsea contract, a five-year deal until 2029 with the option of an additional 12 months, which the club can decide to trigger.
The report adds that Chelsea and Leicester also shook hands on a £10m compensation package on Sunday, and the Blues plan to announce Maresca as their new head coach at some point on Monday.
Keen to go about their business with caution given Leicester's preparations for life back in the Premier League, Chelsea have apparently been left impressed by the Foxes' decorum during negotiations.
Maresca will be bringing six of his trusted staff members with him to Chelsea, including former goalkeeper Willy Caballero, who spent four years as a Blues player from 2017 to 2021.
The Italian leaves the King Power Stadium on the back of masterminding the Foxes' return to the Premier League, as his Leicester side accrued 97 points from 46 matches to pip Ipswich Town to first place.
Is Maresca the right fit for Chelsea?
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Despite overseeing the Foxes' successful push for promotion at the first time of asking, Maresca did not make friends all across Leicestershire last season, with many fans disillusioned by a poor set of results around February and March time.
Maresca's tactics were sometimes criticised by the Leicester faithful, but his possession-based style of football was supposedly a key factor in Chelsea deciding to press ahead with a deal for him.
As a disciple of Pep Guardiola, it is no surprise to see Maresca favour the inverted full-back, as well as building attacking sequences from defence and pressing high up the field when the ball is lost.
As well as his tactics, the 44-year-old is said to have spent many hours learning the specifics of all of Chelsea's first-team and youth players, reaching "encyclopedic" levels of knowledge.
Of course, the owners' scattergun transfer strategy has not helped any of the five souls to take the Chelsea reins so far, but there is reason to believe that Maresca can continue the Blues on the right path that Pochettino set them down.
Ben Knapton
