"Enzo Maresca Steps Up: Can He Avoid the 'Inbetweener' Trap After Pep Guardiola?"

ENZO MARESCA knows he is in danger of being an Inbetweener.

The new manager has probably never seen the TV series and films.

Although Maresca’s successor was teased for his resemblance to nerdy Will, the Italian could hardly be more different from the lead characters, who are knee deep in teenage angst.

Yet, like them, Maresca is at a crossroads in his life.

Can he mature into one of the big boys of management?

Or is departed boss too hard an act to follow, condemning Maresca to life as a stop-gap appointment while City search for an alpha male?

Maresca could take some encouragement from the example of , who won the Premier League in his first season after replacing at Liverpool.

Yet that triumph did not insulate Slot from the consequences of a poor second campaign — and the feeling that his face did not fit at Anfield after all.

Maresca himself acknowledged, on the day he was unveiled as Guardiola’s replacement, that the situation was similar to when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United and Arsene Wenger said adieu to Arsenal.

Ferguson’s anointed heir, David Moyes, was sacked in 2014, 10 months into a six-year contract.

lasted just 18 months after inheriting the Gunners from Wenger in 2018.

In each case, the fact the previous boss was a great in the history of both the club and English football cast a shadow over the next man from which he could not escape.

Which feels like an appropriate image at the end of a week that featured the most spectacular UK solar eclipse for 27 years.

While City and Guardiola were hand in glove, the sun shone out of his behind most of the time — burning so brightly it scorched rivals into dust.

Maresca’s predicament is more like that of Moyes than Emery.

Wenger left Arsenal in 2018 after a trophyless season at the end of a long period when the club had not challenged to be English or European champions.

But Ferguson pulled off the trick of going out at the top, riding into the sunset after winning one more title — his 13th overall — in the most dominant era any English club has ever enjoyed.

City then failed to be crowned champions in Guardiola’s last two campaigns, the only back-to-back ‘failures’ of his 10 seasons in charge.

Nevertheless, he left as a winner, adding another FA Cup and Carabao Cup to his Etihad roll of honour.

So City face champions Arsenal today in Cardiff.

And Maresca is up against a manager who has shown why it is usually better to be the man who comes AFTER the man who came after THE man.

returned to Arsenal after Emery was sacked in late 2019. The way things had gone wrong under Wenger’s immediate successor — and the deeper issues that were exposed — bought him some time.

Winning the FA Cup in his first season also earned Arteta patience from the club hierarchy as they attempted a full rebuild

It was patience he tested until last season, when he finally led Arsenal to their first title since Wenger’s Invincibles of 2003-04.

To do so, Arteta abandoned some of the principles he had learnt at Guardiola’s knee — as well as the Gunners’ reputation for attractive football from the Wenger era.

A team consisting mainly of big, strong athletes, who were physically dominant all over the pitch and especially at set-pieces, became champions in what felt like the beginning of the post-Pep world.
Maresca is his own man.

He even chose not to move into Guardiola’s old office to underline the change.

But at the same time, someone who was City assistant boss in the Treble-winning campaign of 2022-3 has no plans to rip up the Etihad playbook completely or go down the dead-ball route.

Even last season, the latest version of Pep-ball was good enough for City to come out on top in head-to-head battles with Arsenal.

Only Gabriel Martinelli’s late equaliser stopped Guardiola’s side winning at the Emirates.

City followed up a comfortable win in the Carabao Cup final with an April victory at the Etihad, which put them in control of the title’s destiny.

Yet as memorably claimed at the moment of defeat, it was not over.

City failed to press home their advantage and Arsenal’s greater consistency, especially in defence, saw them over the line. In that sense, today’s clash will tell us little about how any title race might go.

But Maresca will do well to avoid the fate of Moyes and Emery, let alone become a more successful Inbetweener like Slot.

BEZ BET IS HANDS OFF

Liverpool fans know better than to get excited about the prospect of becoming a co-owner.

But they should probably be alarmed.

As the Saudi purchase of Newcastle proved, having billionaire backers does not mean you can suddenly spend unlimited amounts.

The only real beneficiaries of the sale of 30 per cent of the Kop giants are FSG.

The club’s supremos are making a massive profit on the £500million they have spent on the Reds — and still retain their status as majority shareholders.

But for how long? The deal is believed to contain clauses which allow Bezos & Co to go for a full buyout.

And if what Bezos has done to another venerable institution is anything to go by, that is a scary prospect.

His reign at the Washington Post, who exposed the Watergate scandal, has been slammed by reporters.

What might Bezos do to the club of Toshack, Keegan and Dalglish?

DARK ARTS NOT SO FAB

It says something that the first person to make contact about new rules this season was an Arsenal supporter.

The amended regulations — especially on time-wasting — may well have an impact on the way Mikel Arteta’s Gunners control games.

Brighton boss will feel vindicated after complaining about the 1-0 home defeat in March.

Arsenal took 30 minutes 51 seconds to restart play in total.

Hurzeler said: “If they win the Premier League, they won’t care how — and you can see they do everything to win it.”

Arsenal are at the Amex on September 19. Bring popcorn.

BRUM BRINGS US A BIT OF RESPITE

Before the football juggernaut really gets going again and chokes every other sport with its fumes, the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham have been a breath of fresh air.

For all the doping scandals of the past — and those probably still to come — there remains ­something wonderfully pure and simple about human beings running, jumping and throwing.

And it was good to see Brits like Amy Hunt and Matt Hudson-Smith winning, especially in a summer of World Cup disappointment and Test series defeat by New Zealand.

LEIC OF THAT

FAIRY tales often have unhappy endings. And so it is with Leicester City and owners King Power.

The documentary, which came out a few months ago was a reminder of what a brilliant story their Premier League title triumph in 2015-16 was.

Just ten years later, the Thai family which bankrolled it have put the club, now in League One, up for sale.

King Power’s core duty-free business has suffered a downturn and there is no more money to put in football.

Which is why we still need rules about owners and sustainability. Just better ones than we have now.