Marc Cucurella slams Chelsea’s transfer policy and says club should not have sacked Enzo Maresca

Marc Cucurella says Chelsea were wrong to sack Enzo Maresca in January, claiming it has led to “instability”, and outlined his frustration at the club’s transfer policy.

Maresca was dismissed on New Year’s Day with Chelsea fifth in the Premier League table and six months after the Londoners won the Club World Cup with a 3-0 demolition of European champions Paris Saint-Germain.

Liam Rosenior was his replacement and, while Cucurella was careful not to criticise the former Hull and Strasbourg boss, he made clear his disappointment at Maresca’s departure.

In a long interview with the Athletic, the Spain international said: “The moment Maresca left, it had a big impact on us. These are decisions taken by the club. If you asked me, I would not have made this decision. To make a change like that, the best thing is to wait until the end of the season. You would give everyone, the players and the new manager, time to get ready, have a full pre-season…

“The instability around the club comes from this, in a nutshell. We had a caretaker [former under-21s coach Calum McFarlane] first, then a new manager, with new ideas and no time to work on them. It is what it is.”

Rosenior struggling due to Chelsea’s busy schedule – Cucurella

Chelsea are now sixth in the league and out of the Champions League following an 8-2 aggregate defeat to PSG.

A run of six defeats in 12 games has increased the feeling of gloom at Stamford Bridge but Cucurella puts their recent stumble down to a crammed fixture list that has reduced the time available for training under the new boss.

He added: “Liam is a very good person and has been great at handling the group, the characters. He likes to stay close to us and his football ideas are good, but we don’t have the time to train them.

“We train on [playing in] competitive games, because we play every three days and that leaves you with no time to work on the training ground. In this context, it is normal that your plans sometimes don’t work out, and then we go through difficult moments.

“With Enzo Maresca in charge, we were more stable, because we worked together for 18 months. If you look at our first pre-season with him, there were doubts. You need a process for every player to understand what we need to do. In our last months with Maresca, we played almost by heart. If we changed the system, we knew what we had to do. You need that time.

“Look at Arsenal now, who are fighting for every trophy. They’ve been with [Mikel] Arteta for almost seven years and they have not won much. But that trust in the project gives rewards.”

Chelsea’s transfer policy frustrates Cucurella

Since being bought by Todd Boehly and the Clearlake Capital consortium in 2022, Chelsea’s transfer policy has seen them target young players that can be developed but Cucurella feels that lack of experience came back to bite them against PSG.

“Results like that are always hard to take,” he said. “You are fighting and training every day only to realise, at the very end, that when games matter, we are still a bit away from the top level.

“I understand this is part of the club’s policy, and that they want to take this direction — signing young players and looking to the future. But, for all of us who are still here and want to win big things, moments like this make you feel discouraged.

“We have a good core of players. The foundations are there. But to fight for major trophies such as the Premier League or the Champions League, you need more. Signing young players only might complicate achieving those goals. Against PSG, we lacked players that had gone through situations like that.

“You need time as well, and I know the young players are the ones that will have the experience in the future. But you need to find the balance between both worlds.”

Cucurella is currently away on international duty but will be back in Chelsea colours this weekend when they host League One strugglers Port Vale in the FA Cup quarter-finals.