Manchester City: A New Era Under Enzo Maresca
A new face on the touchline, familiar pressure in the stands. After a decade defined by Pep Guardiola’s relentlessness, Manchester City step into an unforgiving new chapter with Enzo Maresca in charge and no room for a gentle transition.
Guardiola walked away from the Etihad with a domestic double in his final season, beating Arsenal in the League Cup and Maresca’s former club Chelsea in the FA Cup. Those trophies were numbers 19 and 20 of an era that also delivered six Premier League titles, three FA Cups, five League Cups and the club’s first Champions League. That is the scale of the shadow Maresca walks into. He knows it well; he was part of the inner circle as an assistant in 2022-23.
Now, the landscape has shifted.
A squad stripped of pillars
This is not just a change in the dugout. It is a reset on the pitch.
John Stones and Bernardo Silva, two of the most intelligent and influential players of the Guardiola era, have gone. Stones to Inter, Bernardo to Real Madrid, both on free transfers. Rodri, the midfield metronome who underpinned almost everything City did with and without the ball, has joined Barcelona.
That is the core of a spine ripped out in one summer.
City have reacted with money and intent. Elliot Anderson has arrived from Nottingham Forest after impressing both in the Premier League and at the World Cup. They continue to be linked with Enzo Fernández and Ayyoub Bouaddi as they search for new control and fresh legs in midfield.
All this comes at a time when the Premier League trophy has been out of their hands for two straight seasons. By City’s recent standards, that is an eternity. Liverpool first, then Arsenal, have taken their turn at the summit. For Maresca, this is not a bedding-in year. It is a demand for an instant response, and the early sign was bruising: a 3-0 defeat to Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal in the Community Shield.
The margin for error is thin already.
Haaland, still the inevitable
One thing, though, feels non-negotiable. Barring injury or a collapse of form on a scale the Premier League has never really seen, Erling Haaland will be City’s top scorer again.
The Norwegian comes off an excellent World Cup and has hit at least 22 league goals in each of his four Premier League seasons, including 27 last term. Under Guardiola, the entire attacking structure tilted towards him as the finisher. Maresca’s Chelsea side last season saw Cole Palmer explode, but Nicolas Jackson still passed up chance after chance.
Haaland does not waste in the same way. Feed him, and the numbers follow.
The search for a new spark
Trying to pick a “breakout” player at City this season feels almost forced. This is a squad built to win now, not a project stuffed with unknowns.
Anderson arrives not as a prospect but as someone who has already proved he belongs at this level and on the international stage. The 17-year-old Jeremy Monga, signed from Leicester, is clearly one for the long term rather than an immediate headline-maker.
So attention turns to Abdukodir Khusanov. Strictly speaking, he started to emerge in the second half of last season, but this could be the campaign when he stamps his authority on the centre-back position even when everyone is fit. If he does, City may quietly solve one of the trickier succession questions in their back line.
Foden at the crossroads
If there is one player who embodies the “make or break” tag this season, it is Phil Foden.
Nobody doubts his talent. The frustration lies in how little of it City saw over the course of last year. Foden drifted to the edges of Guardiola’s plans, reduced to a bit-part role, and finished the Premier League season with seven goals in 33 appearances. That output and that status cost him a place at the World Cup.
Now he has a renewed contract, a full preseason behind him and a new manager who will be desperate for someone to take responsibility in the final third alongside Haaland. If Foden catches fire again, he can be unstoppable. If he fades into the background once more, City lose a weapon they can ill afford to waste.
What counts as success now?
At Manchester City, the bar has been clear for years: anything short of winning the Premier League is failure. That was true before Guardiola, it intensified under him, and it does not soften just because he has gone or because Bernardo Silva has left with him.
Maresca walks into that reality with his eyes open. He knows he must find a way past an Arsenal side that has finally shaken off its own burden by ending a 22-year wait for the title. Liverpool will not simply disappear either.
Yet City’s squad still carries the weight of expectation. It is built to compete for everything, on every front. For supporters, a “good effort” or a near miss will not do. Success looks like one thing: lifting the Premier League trophy again in May.
The Maresca question
For years, City fans lived with a sense of tactical security. Guardiola’s presence meant there was always a plan, always a structure, even in defeat. That comfort has gone.
Maresca arrives with European silverware from his spell at Chelsea, having won the Club World Cup and the Conference League. But his league form there never fully convinced, often a touch erratic, and he is not yet operating on Guardiola’s tactical level. Few are.
He does, though, inherit a squad far superior to anything he has coached before. That should elevate him, hide some flaws, and give him room to imprint his ideas. The nagging doubt remains: can anyone, even with this group of players, live up to the absurd benchmark Guardiola set?
Verdict
The feeling is City will fall just short. A second-place finish looks the likeliest outcome. If Maresca clicks quickly, if Haaland stays ruthless and Foden truly reignites, they can absolutely chase down Arsenal.
But asking a first-year City manager to instantly recreate a dynasty is a brutal task. The season will reveal whether this is a brief pause in City’s dominance, or the moment the Premier League finally opens up for good.
