Analysis: How will Man City look under Maresca?
As Man City announce their replacement for Guardiola, we look at how they could line up under the Italian
Enzo Maresca has been named Manchester City’s new manager, replacing Pep Guardiola. Here, football writer Alex Keble takes a look at what Man City’s playing style could be under the Italian and what their strongest line-up may be.
Replacing Pep Guardiola after a decade of unprecedented success was never going to be easy, although Manchester City’s task essentially boiled down to two choices: a radical left turn or a continuity appointment.
The entire set-up at City has been built around Guardiola’s genius, so it should come as no surprise that City have opted for the latter, hiring, in Enzo Maresca, a certified Guardiola disciple and protégé.
“Extraordinary,” was Guardiola’s description of the new City boss way back in 2021, just after Maresca had led Man City’s Elite Development Squad to the Premier League 2 title in his only season at the helm.
“I feel it like I felt it when I saw Mikel Arteta. It’s the same with Enzo. He’ll be an extraordinary manager.”
Arteta, at the time, had just finished eighth in his first full season at Arsenal. But Pep knew he would go onto great things – and he has predicted the same for Maresca.
Guardiola’s relationship with Maresca reveals their tactical bond
So impressed was Guardiola that, one year after Maresca’s season with the academy, Pep rehired him as his assistant manager.
Again Maresca was there for just one year, again it was a huge success, 2022/23 being the season Man City won the Treble – Premier League, FA Cup and UEFA Champions League.
Maresca left to manage Leicester City, whom he took to the Championship title in 2023/24, and then onto Chelsea, where he won the FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Conference League in his only full season at Stamford Bridge, but his time with Guardiola clearly made a huge impression.
“I was a lucky man to work with him,” Guardiola said before his team met Chelsea in January 2025. A year later, he was even more effusive in his praise when Maresca was dismissed: “The only [thing] I can say is that Chelsea, I think, from my point of view, lose an incredible, incredible manager, [and] incredible person.”
Maresca’s tactics are pure Pep
Unsurprisingly, Maresca’s tactical identity is very similar to his predecessor, albeit with some important caveats we will come onto.
The headline is that Maresca’s patient possession football, his zealous belief in positional play (controlling and utilising space, by stationing players in choreographed patterns), and his constant in-game tactical tweaks are pure Pep.
Nobody quite matches Man City’s playing style, but isolating the 18 months Maresca was in charge at Chelsea, we can see his team were the closest to Guardiola’s slow and intricate football.
Again comparing them over the same time period, the statistics show Maresca replicating Guardiola’s careful build-up from the back.
Chelsea and Man City’s passing stats – 1 July 2024 to 30 Dec 2025
| Chelsea (PL rank) | Man City (PL rank) | |
| Possession | 57.5% (3rd) | 60.5% (1st) |
| Average sequence time (secs) | 11.2 (3rd) | 14.0 (1st) |
| % passes that go forward | 29.3% (2nd lowest) | 25.2% (1st lowest) |
In fact, so similar are the two coaches’ fundamental principles, both men adapted towards more direct, incisive, transitional football almost simultaneously.
“Today, modern football is not positional, you have to ride the rhythm,” Guardiola told TNT Sports in January 2025, a quote that marks a watershed moment for Premier League tactics shifting away from possession and positional play towards dribbling, forward thrust, and attacking quickly following a transition (the disruptive moment when possession changes hands).
Guardiola began to sign more direct and urgent players, like Gianluigi Donnarumma and Jeremy Doku, culminating in a 2025/26 campaign that saw Man City hit five-year highs for through-balls attempted, fast breaks, and take-ons attempted, and a five-year low for possession.
Man City’s change in style under Guardiola, last five seasons
| 2025/26 | Rank (last five seasons of Pep’s City) | |
| Possession | 60.5% | 5th |
| Through-balls attempted | 127 (50% increase from 2024/25) | 1st |
| Fast breaks | 42 | 1st |
| Take-ons attempted | 824 | 1st |
Similarly, Maresca, renowned at Leicester for football as slow and meticulous as his other love, chess, leant considerably into counter-attacking possibilities at Chelsea.
During Maresca’s time at Chelsea, his team ranked second for shots from fast breaks, with 159, and second for direct attacks, with 756. This peaked in the Club World Cup final, when Chelsea sat back and picked Paris Saint-Germain off on the counter, winning 3-0.
Maresca differs from Pep in pressing style
Where we see the biggest difference, related directly to Chelsea’s ability to play vertically and quickly, is how they pressed.
Their respective passes per defensive action (PPDA) scores (a measure of pressing, where a lower score suggests greater intensity) during Maresca’s 18 months at Chelsea tell us his team (10.72) were more aggressive than Man City (11.55).
But more importantly, while Guardiola tends to sit off in a zonal midblock, Maresca is all-action, with a man-to-man press; his players follow individuals around the pitch, no matter how far it pulls them out of their base position, while City stay in their zones.
The difference can be seen in these two stills from Man City v Chelsea in January 2024.
Chelsea are clearly man-to-man, whereas City stay in their zones, so much so that Matheus Nunes drops back into position rather than push onto the unmarked Marc Cucurella.
Maresca’s use of full-backs in a 3-box-3 is another departure from Pep
Guardiola plays a 4-3-3 with wingers who come infield while Maresca prefers a 4-2-3-1 that tends to look more like the fashionable 3-box-3: two deeper midfielders and two higher midfielders forming a box shape.
That being said, we shouldn’t get too far into the weeds here, since both managers regularly change formation and evolve their system.
However, one area of crucial and significant difference is their use of full-backs.
Through Cucurella in particular, Maresca has been innovative with this position, often asking his full-backs to push inside like a box-to-box midfielder and make runs through the centre. But they also act as a No 6 and a traditional full-back, usually all at the same time and within the same game.
Here’s a classic example from a 3-0 victory over Aston Villa in December 2024, when Cucurella had a whopping 124 touches of the ball.
How Man City may look under Maresca
Full-back may be an area Maresca wishes to improve, although Rayan Ait-Nouri – who struggled to get into Guardiola’s team – has the tactical (attacking) intelligence to play those innovative roles from the left.
Elsewhere, Maresca wants his wingers high and wide, offsetting the box in midfield, so Doku and Antoine Semenyo should excel, while Erling Haaland is the striker he never had at Chelsea.
Looking at the 18-month period Maresca was at Chelsea, it’s noteworthy that his team produced a very similar Expected Goals (xG) to Man City, but scored 19 fewer goals across 57 matches.
Chelsea’s xG under Maresca compared to Man City’s – 1 July 2024 to 30 Dec 2025
| Expected Goals | Goals | |
| Chelsea | 102.13 | 96 |
| Man City | 103.92 | 115 |
There is less fortune in midfield. With Bernardo Silva gone, and nobody in the squad like Enzo Fernandez, it is likely Maresca will want to sign a metronomic midfield playmaker, although one possibility is to retrain Nico O’Reilly – No 10 by trade, left-back under Pep – into a central midfielder.
Often Chelsea’s midfielders were expected to pull unusually wide to get on the ball, especially against compact teams who pack the centre of the pitch.
That makes O’Reilly, with his left-back experience and capacity to drive forward in possession, an ideal No 8 for Maresca.
Higher up, Rayan Cherki should be able to fulfil the role Cole Palmer had at Chelsea.
There aren’t many areas for improvement, although Maresca may want more options in central defence.
Maresca’s weaknesses at Chelsea are unlikely to be replicated
Remarkably, in just 19 Premier League matches in 2025/26, Maresca made a grand total of 25 changes to his back four between games, making two or more changes 11 times. He also made a further 23 changes in defence via substitutions and, overall, started seven unique back fours.
However, that twitchiness – along with another prominent critique: Maresca’s substitutions were often too conservative, inviting pressure – might not indicate a tactical belief, but rather the unique challenges at Chelsea.
Chelsea had a young team and a large squad, and their inexperience often cost them; over Maresca’s 18 months, his team topped the charts for ill-discipline (142 yellows and four red cards) and made the third-most errors (41 leading to a shot, 18 to a goal).
Man City are run quite differently, preferring a small squad of experienced players.
So, there is every reason to assume Maresca’s tenure will be more stable than his short stint at Stamford Bridge, especially considering he has all the Guardiola hallmarks, plenty of unique tactical ideas of his own, and – perhaps most importantly – the blessing of his predecessor.
Replacing Guardiola is an almost impossible task. At least with Maresca, the club have given themselves the best chance of a seamless transition.