Maresca’s greatest Chelsea success may ultimately be what gets him the sack

Something we pondered in the summer was whether the Club World Cup would have any tangible impact on Manchester City and Chelsea – and thus by extension Liverpool and Arsenal. And, indeed, whether that impact would be positive or negative.

Would the presence of halfway-meaningful games against similarly halfway-engaged opposition lead those two teams to hit the ground running when the real business began, already match-honed and battle sharpened? Or would they just be frazzled after essentially eschewing the benefits of a summer off in favour of bowing before the almighty Trump and to a lesser extent FIFA?

And if they did start well, would that be maintained? Would it all catch up with them later in the season when there simply aren’t the usual reserves of energy to call upon?

The key difference between a Club World Cup summer and a regular international tournament summer was always going to be the unevenness. Club managers must watch those summer tournaments through their hands just hoping everyone comes through unscathed, but at least they know every other manager is going through the same thing.

And at least those managers themselves are, at least in theory, getting some small amount of time away from what is an impossibly demanding and relentless job.

The Club World Cup, by definition, affects some clubs enormously and others not at all. And the impact of that is always going to be more keenly felt in England than elsewhere, given the depth of English football and the calibre not only of the teams who will be in it but those who will not.

It’s still early to draw firm long-term conclusions, but it does seem reasonable to tentatively suggest that neither Chelsea nor Man City have hit the ground running and have, if anything, been notably cruddier than might otherwise have been the case.

City’s Club World Cup adventure was less taxing after their relatively early exit, but there is a confusion to their football this season as they attempt to craft a slightly new identity and method with a new-look team. A full summer on the training ground would surely have been more useful for Pep Guardiola than playing in FIFA’s Big New Idea.

Instead they have looked very much like a work in progress this season. We said at the time that their opening-day 4-0 win over Wolves was going to tell us a lot about one of those two teams, we just weren’t yet sure which. We’re pretty sure now.

It’s impossible to have a definitive answer to this, but with a more normal summer would Guardiola have been so frazzled and rattled that he saw all those terrifying Arsenal attacking demons at the Emirates where in truth none really existed?

But it’s Chelsea where the most obvious problems exist. Enzo Maresca has hinted at the summer’s endeavours being a key factor behind injury problems he has described as “not random”.

While we must take care with causation and correlation here – Arsenal, for instance, have adopted a policy of picking up a new injury every game and Tottenham are once again missing a whole bunch of players all at the same time – it does feel like he might have a point.

The Club World Cup victory might prove cruelly bittersweet for Maresca. It was a victory that should have been his greatest moment in football, but it may well be one that stitched him up twice by raising expectations for the season ahead to new heights while also itself being the major reason why he and Chelsea would not be able to reach said heights.

And to make it worse, nobody even really cares, do they? Nobody is really out here being impressed that Chelsea – or Maresca – are ‘world champions’. It hasn’t even given him any credit in the bank.

We do think that will change with time, that the Club World Cup will come to be viewed as a genuinely major trophy – perhaps even the major trophy – in club football. But that day is not yet here, and the fact history will judge him kindly is only minor consolation to a manager struggling right here, right now.

Victory over the world’s best in the USA over the summer should have been a moment that cemented Maresca’s status and standing at Chelsea. It may well end up being a success that costs him his job.