Chelsea have confirmed the appointment of Enzo Maresca on a five‑year contract, the new manager ­having accepted the challenge of ­returning the club to the ­Champions League as a bare minimum. The 44‑year‑old ­Italian led Leicester to the Championship title last season – his only full campaign as a head coach – and he succeeds ­Mauricio ­Pochettino, who left ­Chelsea by mutual consent two weeks ago. Maresca becomes the fifth mana­ger in the two-year Chelsea ownership of Behdad Eghbali and Todd ­Boehly, after Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard and ­Pochettino. The list does not include Bruno Saltor, who took interim charge for one game in April 2023 after Potter’s departure. The length of Maresca’s contract – which has a club option of a further year – is significant; Pochettino was given two years, plus a one-year club option, and it is part of the owners’ desire to go in a different direction. The season under Pochettino ended with five successive ­Premier League wins, a sixth-placed ­finish and Europa Conference League qualification, which was an improvement on 12th place from 2022-23. Yet ­turbulence was rarely far away, the feeling Pochettino was an imperfect fit for the owners hard to ignore. Maresca, who officially starts on 1 July, has bought into his role in the club’s structure. Whereas ­Pochettino sought greater power, ­including over recruitment, Maresca is happy to ­concentrate on coaching and seeking to fulfil the owners’ ambitions, which they outlined in the programme for the final game of the season, against Bournemouth. A message talked about a need to be “consistently winning or con­tending for the Premier League” and “consistently playing in the Champions League”. ­Chelsea will play in the revamped Club World Cup in the summer of 2025, having qualified as the 2021 Champions League winners. “To join Chelsea, one of the biggest clubs in the world, is a dream for any coach. It is why I am so excited by this opportunity,” Maresca said. “I look forward to working with a very ­talented group of players and staff to develop a team that continues the club’s tradition of success and makes our fans proud.” Maresca counts Pep Guardiola among his influences, having worked under him at Manchester City, initially as the club’s elite development squad manager in 2020-21 when he won the Premier League 2 title by 14 points. After a short-lived stint as the manager of Parma the following season – he won four and lost four of 13 Serie B matches – he returned to City in the summer of 2022 as ­Guardiola’s assistant and helped them to treble-winning glory. In a parallel with the Arsenal mana­ger, Mikel Arteta – another former Guardiola assistant at City – it is possible to see similarities in terms of playing style between Maresca and Guardiola. Maresca is obsessed by patient possession and positional play, his go-to system is 4-3-3 and the Chelsea hierarchy are convinced his approach will suit the technically gifted squad. Maresca left his native Italy at 18 to sign for West Brom at the start of his playing career, earning a move to Juventus, where he worked under Carlo Ancelotti and Marcello Lippi, and played alongside Antonio Conte. Early in his coaching career, Maresca was the assistant to Manuel Pellegrini at West Ham. Guardiola is hardly his only influence. Maresca went to Leicester in the summer of last year, living at the training ground for the first two months to get a feel for the job, which was to rejuvenate the club after the shock relegation from the Premier League. He was charged with getting them straight back up – nothing else. It did not matter that James ­Maddison, ­Harvey Barnes and Youri Tielemans had left. Maresca delivered. Leicester said they were “disappointed” that he “no longer wants to be part of our vision”. They will receive about £10m in ­compensation for Maresca and six members of his backroom staff who have also gone to Chelsea. They are the former Chelsea goalkeeper and assistant manager Willy Caballero, the coach Danny Walker, the goalkeeper coach Michele De Bernardin, the fitness coach ­Marcos Álvarez, the first-team analyst Javier Molina Caballero, and Roberto Vitiello, who worked as the development coach. Chelsea confirmed the arrival of the set-piece coach Bernardo Cueva from Brentford. It has been known for some months that he would be ­joining. Pochettino, when ­questioned about the appointment in March, was not effusive.