Enzo Maresca is set to replace Pep Guardiola as Manchester City manager before next season, with talks at an advanced stage and the 46-year-old wanting the job. Guardiola is expected to leave after Sunday’s final league match against Aston Villa at Etihad Stadium, bringing down the curtain on more than a decade in charge and putting City’s succession plan into motion.
The search has narrowed around a man who knows the club from the inside. Maresca worked as Guardiola’s assistant during City’s Treble-winning 2022-23 campaign and had already played a key role in the academy before leaving in 2023 to move into management. His return would bring City a coach whose route has been shaped by the same system Guardiola built, and it would give the club a familiar face at a moment when everything around the dugout is about to change.
That familiarity does not hide the scale of the leap. Maresca is the leading contender for the 2026-27 season, but he would arrive with a much lower profile and a less stellar elite-level record than Guardiola. The contrast is obvious: Guardiola has set the standard across more than a decade at City, while Maresca’s top-level résumé is still being written. Even so, he has done enough in a short time to make himself the preferred name in the frame.
His case rests on what he has already done away from Manchester. Maresca guided Leicester to promotion to the Premier League in his only season there, then took over at Chelsea in June 2024. He lasted less than six months after winning the Club World Cup, Conference League and securing Champions League qualification in his only full season at Stamford Bridge before leaving in January. Guardiola has already praised him publicly, calling him one of the best managers in the world and saying his work at Chelsea does not get enough credit.
Manchester City have been preparing for Guardiola’s summer exit for more than six months, and Maresca’s path would echo the rise of Mikel Arteta, who also worked on the coaching staff at Etihad Stadium before becoming Arsenal manager. That connection matters because City are not looking for a rupture so much as a handover to someone who understands the culture and the demands. The gap now is not whether Maresca fits the club’s history. It is whether City move quickly enough to make the succession official before the new season begins.
