Manchester City: A New Era Under Maresca

The Pep Guardiola decade at the Etihad is over, its legacy measured in silverware and standards that feel almost impossible to match. Nineteen, then twenty trophies. Six Premier League titles, three FA Cups, five League Cups, a Champions League, and finally a domestic double to sign off, with Arsenal beaten in the League Cup and Enzo Maresca’s former club Chelsea dispatched in the FA Cup final in May.

Now the Guardiola banners stay, but the man on the touchline has changed. Maresca, once the apprentice on that same bench in the 2022-23 season, walks into a job where anything less than greatness is labelled failure.

And the squad he inherits is not the same one that terrorised England for a decade.

A Dressing Room Rewritten

This is not just a change of coach; it’s a change of core.

John Stones has gone, taking his hybrid defender-midfielder role to Inter. Bernardo Silva, the heartbeat and captain, has left for Real Madrid. Rodri, the metronome in midfield and the man for the biggest moments, now plays for Barcelona. Three pillars of Guardiola’s control era, gone in one summer.

City have tried to push forward rather than stand still. Elliot Anderson has arrived from Nottingham Forest for serious money after shining both in the Premier League and at the World Cup. They continue to be linked with Enzo Fernández and Ayyoub Bouaddi as the club look to rebuild a midfield that once picked itself.

All this comes against a backdrop that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: two straight seasons without a Premier League title. Liverpool first, then Arsenal, have taken turns lifting the trophy that used to live in Manchester by default. For City, that gap feels like a drought.

Maresca’s first marker? A 3-0 defeat to Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal in the Community Shield. Not fatal. But not the start a new era craves.

Haaland: The Inevitable Focal Point

One thing has not changed: Erling Haaland remains the most obvious answer to the simplest question.

Who scores the goals?

Barring injury or a collapse in form on a scale the Premier League has never really seen, the Norwegian should again finish as City’s top scorer. He arrives off the back of an excellent World Cup and has hit at least 22 league goals in each of his four seasons in England, including 27 last term.

Under Guardiola, City were built to funnel chances towards Haaland. The system bent to his presence. Maresca’s Chelsea side last season saw Cole Palmer explode, but Nicolas Jackson wasted a string of opportunities. At City, the 26-year-old Haaland will see similar volume. He simply does not waste as much.

If City click, his numbers will follow.

The Next Face of the Future

This is not a squad brimming with unknown quantities. City are mature, battle-tested, and largely settled. The idea of a “breakout player” feels almost out of place.

Anderson hardly fits that tag. He has already announced himself at Nottingham Forest and on the international stage. Jeremy Monga, signed at 17 from Leicester, is clearly one for tomorrow, not today.

So the best candidate for a genuine step-change season might be Abdukodir Khusanov.

The centre-back began to emerge in the second half of last season, hinting that he belongs at this level. This campaign offers him something different: the chance to make the position his own when everyone is fit, to move from promising option to automatic pick. If he takes that leap, Maresca’s rebuild at the back suddenly looks far less fragile.

Foden at the Crossroads

No one questions Phil Foden’s talent. The problem is how rarely it truly dominated games last season.

He drifted to the margins, a bit-part figure in a team he once seemed destined to lead. Seven goals in 33 Premier League appearances told the story of a player who never quite found rhythm. The consequence was brutal: he missed out on the World Cup.

Now he returns with a new Manchester City contract, a full preseason, and a fresh manager who needs difference-makers. This feels like a make-or-break year in terms of status, not ability. If Foden catches fire again, defenders know what comes next. He becomes almost impossible to contain.

If he doesn’t, the question shifts from “how good can he be?” to “what is he, really, in this City side?”

What Counts as Success?

At Manchester City, the bar is clear and unforgiving. The Premier League is not a dream; it is a requirement. Anything less is framed as failure.

That reality does not soften because Guardiola has gone or because Bernardo Silva is no longer in the dressing room. Maresca steps into a club where the expectation is to compete on all fronts and to finish May with the league trophy in hand.

Arsenal have finally shaken off their own burden, ending a 22-year wait for a title. They are no longer the nearly-men. They are champions, and they know how it feels. Maresca must find a way past them.

He does, however, have something every new manager craves: a squad capable of winning everything. The supporters will not lower their sights. For them, success is simple: City back on top of England.

Anything else is a story of what went wrong.

The Big Question: Can Maresca Carry the Weight?

For years, City lived under the safety net of Guardiola’s genius. Every problem felt solvable. Every wobble felt temporary.

That comfort has gone.

Maresca arrives with medals of his own, having led Chelsea to the Club World Cup and the Conference League. But his league campaigns were always a little uneven, his tactical work still a step below the man he now replaces. He has never managed a squad of this quality, nor a club with this level of expectation.

That cuts both ways. The players at his disposal can mask flaws, but the pressure exposes them just as quickly. The doubt is not whether he is good. It is whether anyone can live up to the absurd standards Guardiola set.

The Verdict

Prediction: second.

If Maresca lands his ideas quickly, City have the weapons to push Arsenal all the way and even edge them. But asking a first-year manager at the Etihad to instantly recreate a decade of dominance is a huge demand, even with this squad.

The new era has begun. Now we find out whether Manchester City have simply changed managers, or changed something far deeper.