This is my personal opinion. I'm not claiming inside knowledge. I'm just a Chelsea fan from Surabaya writing down how this season felt.
I almost supported Norwich
I've been a Chelsea fan since 2004. I was born in 1997, so do the math. Seven years old when Roman Abramovich walked in and when English Premier League football finally showed up on my TV properly. Before that I knew football existed. I kicked a ball around like every kid. But this was the first time I could actually follow a league week after week, match after match, with real stakes and real names.
Supporting Chelsea from Surabaya means weird kickoff times. Midnight games. 2 AM games before work. Checking your phone for the score before you even brush your teeth. Showing up to the office on Monday looking like death because Chelsea played late on Sunday and you couldn't shut up about it for another hour.
Here's something I still laugh about. I almost became a Norwich City fan. Not as a joke. I genuinely liked their jersey. Yellow and green. Looked amazing to seven year old me. I didn't know anything about Norwich's history or their league position or whatever. I just liked how they looked on screen.
Then I kept watching Chelsea. Kezman. Duff. Crespo. Drogba. Lampard. Terry. I didn't understand tactics back then. I just knew they looked like they gave a damn about each other. Norwich would've been the quieter life. Less heartbreak, less yelling at the TV in Surabaya at 2 AM while everyone else slept. Chelsea gave me trophies and chaos instead. Worth it, I think.
Roman's money spoiled me without me knowing it. Trophies kept coming, big signings kept happening. When you're seven you think that's normal. Then it took me years to realize most clubs don't live like that.
What the old Chelsea felt like
For me the old Chelsea is Terry, Lampard, and Drogba. That's the bar.
John Terry looked like he'd head a bus if it meant keeping a clean sheet. Lampard always turned up. Drogba made Munich happen. I was too young to understand everything that night live but I've rewatched it enough times as a teenager to get it.
Those players swore to protect the badge. I know that sounds dramatic written down. But if you were watching back then, you know what I mean. They played like leaving Chelsea would hurt them personally. Like the crest on the chest wasn't decoration.
That became my standard, maybe an unfair one. Most football is business now and I get that intellectually. Emotionally though? I still want people at Chelsea who look like they'd die before they disrespected the shirt. I miss that feeling. Been missing it for a while honestly.
This season broke my habit
I'd call myself an avid Chelsea fan. Not someone who checks the score once a week and calls it support. I watch, I argue. I read too much into press conferences. I've got a group chat that gets ugly when we lose and unbearable when we win. My wife can tell when Chelsea play without me saying anything. My mood just shifts. She didn't marry a football fan on purpose but she puts up with it.
The 2025/2026 season changed something.
Sometime in November I basically checked out, which sounds mild when I type it, but I'm the kind of idiot who's sat through Mourinho getting sacked, Potter, Poch, seasons where I hated the manager and still finished every game angry at full time. I always had an opinion, always sent something stupid to the group chat.
This time I didn't even want to open the app.
The football didn't make sense, and I don't mean losing. I've seen us lose plenty. I mean stuff like playing Malo Gusto at number 10. Why the fuck is Gusto at 10? He's a right back, most probably can play at wing side. What are we doing? I sat there watching it thinking either I'm too stupid to understand football or Maresca was making it up as he went. After a while I stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt.
There were matches where I'd pause at halftime and realize I couldn't remember a single chance we created. Not because I wasn't paying attention. Because there genuinely wasn't much worth remembering. That's a horrible feeling for a fan. You're not angry, you're just... empty.
Look, Maresca's first season was genuinely good. He won trophies. I backed him then and I meant it. The problem was this season. It just didn't work at all. He wanted a centre back in the window and didn't get one. Yeah, I blame management for that. But Maresca should still have given his 100% to the club. You don't get to check out because the board annoyed you.
And that's when the uglier thought crept in. If he was still fighting, you'd see it on the pitch even without the centre back he wanted. At first I told myself I was being dramatic. Maybe he was experimenting. Maybe the squad was the problem. But it kept happening, and by December it didn't feel like a manager struggling anymore. It felt like a manager who'd already left in his head. I hated thinking that. Turns out I was just early.
I backed Maresca when I probably shouldn't have
So you'd think I'd turned on him right there. I didn't.
I kept saying the same thing in the group chat every week. Give him time. The board didn't sign his centre back. You can't expect a manager to fix a defence when the people upstairs won't buy him a defender. And I had last season in my pocket as proof he could do it. Trophies. A manager who won things doesn't become useless overnight. That's what I kept telling myself.
When other fans started calling for his head I pushed back. I'd watched Chelsea panic over bad runs before. Sack the manager, appoint someone new, same problems underneath. I didn't want to be part of that cycle again, especially not with a guy who'd actually delivered in his first year.
So I defended him. Online, to friends, to anyone who'd listen. Even when I was sitting there at 2 AM watching whatever mad lineup he'd picked thinking this is madness. Even when I couldn't remember the last good half of football we'd played. I found a way to blame someone else. Boehly. Eghbali. The squad. Injuries. Anyone, except Maresca.
When Maresca resigned around New Year nothing changed from me. Same excuses, same blame pointed anywhere except the manager. I even went after Liam Rosenior when he came in as the replacement before the man had time to put his bags down. Sorry Liam. I said that to friends and I mean it here too. From where I sat things didn't improve. The football still looked confused. The energy still felt off.
I wanted Maresca to be the good guy in a bad system. I needed that story because the alternative was worse. The alternative meant I'd been fooled while arguing with other fans about giving him more time.
Some of those arguments got heated. I'm not proud of every message I sent. When you love a club you talk like the club's survival depends on your take being correct. It doesn't. But try telling that to me at midnight after a 0-0 draw that felt like punishment.
Even after he left I felt a weird sadness. Not because the football was good. It wasn't. Because I'd invested belief and I hate admitting belief was misplaced. That's a me problem as much as a Chelsea problem.
Looking back, I'm embarrassed about how long I held the line for him. Not because backing a manager is wrong, but because the evidence was on the pitch every week and I kept finding someone else to blame. Management. Injuries. Age. Everything except the man setting up the team.
Then City announced him
I figured that was more or less it. He resigned, I looked stupid in a few group chats, Rosenior came in, we moved on. Then Manchester City announced him as their new manager and the whole thing turned sideways.
I remember where I was. Lunch break at work. Chelsea put out a statement, then Maresca posted his. I read the lot on my phone and just sat there staring at the screen while my food went cold.
I wasn't angry straight away. I just kept scrolling and getting more pissed off. Chelsea's side, Maresca's side. Reading it back against everything since November. The empty halves. Him walking out midseason. It wasn't a manager who got screwed by the board. It was a manager who already had City waiting while we were still his problem.
Then he deleted the clarification. Deleted the sorry post too. Gone. Like none of it happened.
That's when I was done with him. Maresca is a snake. I'd put him above Courtois on my list and I used to hate Courtois properly for leaving.
Courtois hurt when he left for Real Madrid. I was angry. I called him names I won't repeat here. But over time I understood it differently. Players leave. Sometimes it's a hard decision, sometimes it's easy and they just want the bigger stage. Real Madrid is Real Madrid. I don't love it but I made peace with it. I don't think about him much anymore.
Maresca is a different category for me. He didn't just leave for a bigger job after an honest season. Based on how the timeline lined up and how the football felt from my living room in Surabaya, it looked like he damaged us from the inside and the outside at the same time. Bad football when we needed him most. A midseason resignation that left the squad in limbo. Then City waiting with open arms and a pile of clarifications that read like someone trying to get ahead of a story.
I believe, and again this is my personal opinion not a claim of insider knowledge, that there was already something agreed with City before the resignation went public. I believe he coached the way he did because his future mattered more to him than ours. Resigning midseason when the club is still fighting on multiple fronts isn't a normal goodbye. It's a detonation. You don't do that to a club you respect.
I'm happy we got rid of him. I don't wish him well. I hope City enjoy whatever they signed.
The snakes and the ones who meant it
I curse Maresca the same way I curse Kai Havertz and Mason Mount. That trio lives in the same place in my head now and I don't think they're leaving anytime soon.
Havertz has mocked us whenever he gets the chance. Scored against us. Celebrated like it meant something extra. You know the type. Every time it happens someone in the group chat sends a sticker and we all pretend we're not bothered. We are bothered.
Mount prepared a goodbye video long before Manchester United even announced him. That part still makes me laugh in a bitter way. The production was ready. The decision was already made. Chelsea was just the place he was leaving, not the place he belonged. I used to like Mount. I defended him in arguments. I don't do that anymore.
Courtois was a snake too by most fan definitions. Maresca still tops my list for how deliberate it all felt.
Then I scroll old highlights and see Terry putting his body on the line. Lampard arriving in the box at the right second again and again. Drogba in Munich. That's the standard in my head. Those men played like the badge mattered. They would've died protecting it. I can't lower that bar just because football changed.
When I look back at recent managers I even think Mauricio Pochettino did a better job than Maresca. I didn't love every Pochettino week. There were frustrating months. Tactical stuff I disagreed with. Press conferences that annoyed me. But he tried to build something on the pitch. You could see effort even when results were mixed. Maresca left behind a team that felt like it had forgotten how to play together on purpose.
Pochettino wasn't perfect. Far from it. But at least when we lost under him I usually knew what we were trying to do. Under Maresca in November-December, I didn't even have that small comfort.
Xabi
I still don't fully trust the people upstairs. Maresca and those deleted posts didn't help. But when Chelsea appointed Xabi Alonso, something in me shifted.
Remember I stopped opening the app in November-December? That was me. He hasn't managed a single game for us yet. I know that. But when the appointment dropped I actually cared again. I read the news. I watched his press conference. First time in months Chelsea stuff didn't feel like a chore.
I've got high hopes for his reign. I believe he can bring back the old mighty Chelsea, the kind that made a kid in Surabaya yell at his TV at 2 AM because it actually meant something.
I'm going to cherish every moment of it. Press conferences, bad runs, whatever comes. I want to be present for it instead of protecting myself by pretending I don't care like I did in November.
I'm also going to try trusting management again. Not blindly. But I want to believe they'll support Xabi no matter what, even when it gets ugly. If they do that, maybe this club can feel like Chelsea again.
My friends in the group chat feel it too. We're cautious. We joke about getting hurt again. But we're already back in there arguing about how he'll set up the team and whether management will actually back him when things get hard.
Still blue
Twenty years of this club and the Maresca chapter still managed to surprise me. He sits with Havertz and Mount in my head now. Management hasn't fully earned my trust back. Xabi hasn't kicked a ball for us yet. But his appointment is the first thing in months that made me give a damn again.
I'm still blue. Less stupid about Maresca than I was in November. Actually excited about what's coming.
Long live the blue.