Enzo Maresca deserves Man City apology not Al Mubarak, Soriano evasion

“Since I joined the club, the last 48 hours have been the worst because many people didn’t support us,” Enzo Maresca said at a Chelsea press conference in December 2025 before he met his Blues end a couple of weeks later.

He won’t say as much when he sits in front of the world’s media as Manchester City boss on Friday – when he’ll presumably call for cool heads as he focuses on the next game and only the next game – but the last few days must have been far, far worse.

And things were so positive. Top of the Premier League after taking maximum points from their first five games; he was making following Pep Guardiola look easy. When last we saw him his biggest concern was a Brian Brobbey hat-trick.

He is set to address his City players for the first time since the guilty verdict on Thursday ahead of a daunting test at the best of times, against Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday.

They’re going to get dog’s abuse from fans who will revel in being the first group able to voice their disapproval, with a good two weeks granted to make banners, compose chants and build up a fervour of hatred towards a football club that Liverpool fans will insist stands against everything their fine institution represents. It’s going to be brutal out there.

And like his players, assuming Enzo Maresca isn’t in possession of a Roberto Mancini ‘double contract’, which would have been a brazen move even for City given reports suggest they officially appointed him after learning of their guilt, the Italian will be the recipient of abuse he doesn’t deserve.

Nor does he deserve to be the figurehead for a cheating football club that has thrown him under the bus even by giving him the job and is sure to leave him under the wheels to face the music on Friday, for what will surely be the most-watched football press conference in history.

He’s what you might describe as a ‘good club man’. He has – or rather had – a lot to thank Manchester City for. They gave him his start in management, granted him first-hand access to arguably the greatest manager of all time as Guardiola’s assistant and have now handed him the full-time reins at one of the biggest clubs in world football.

That’s looking more like a curse than a blessing right now, but even if City are relegated, expelled or fired directly into the sun, Maresca should leave the club with his reputation intact. Again, this almost certainly has nothing to do with him.

And yes, he absolutely should leave if the appeal fails after City handed him a poisoned chalice. Imagine achieving your dream and finding out a month later that that dream is founded on bullsh*t. It’s unconscionable.

As is the thought of him sitting with the City press officer in front of a room packed full of journalists who really need to be asking the questions about ‘sham’ sponsorship deals and flagrant cheating to the men responsible for the greatest scandal in football history rather than someone who’s coached the team for eight games.

Because what can he say? He’ll toe the party line, insist he trusts in the owners and their innocence, and try and fail to convince us all that it’s business as usual on the training ground. We’ll all watch but it won’t be worth watching.

The only consequence of Enzo Maresca fielding questions on Manchester City’s breaches of financial fair play will be to Enzo Maresca. And he could so easily be taken out of the firing line by someone who also won’t say anything of note or worth, but at least deserves to have difficult questions fired their way.

City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak or CEO Ferran Soriano owe Maresca that much at least after appointing him to what purported to be one of the best jobs in football but is in fact one of the very worst.