Manchester City are the perfect FA Cup final opponents for Chelsea this weekend.
Not in the sense of maximising their chances of lifting the trophy, though defeats in the last two FA Cup finals have marked out Pep Guardiola’s side as surprisingly beatable at the denouement of this particular competition. Not even because City also happen to be in the midst of a Premier League title race; those expecting them to betray a lack of focus at Wembley on Saturday are likely to be disappointed.
City are the perfect opponents because they have served as a benchmark of football excellence and a source of inspiration — as well as, at times, a source of personnel — for the version of Chelsea that BlueCo have sought to build on and off the pitch over the last four years.
There will be plenty of City connections in the Chelsea representation at Wembley. On the pitch, where City academy graduates Cole Palmer and Romeo Lavia are likely starters and Tosin Adarabioyo and Liam Delap may also see match time. In the dugout, where former City academy coach Calum McFarlane will face Guardiola for the second time as interim Blues boss. In the stands, where former City head of performance analysis Laurence Stewart and former City scouts Joe Shields and Dave Fallows are often among the sporting leadership delegation attending games with co-owner Behdad Eghbali.
Romeo Lavia and Cole Palmer in their Manchester City days (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
It did not take long for the BlueCo ownership consortium led by Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly to look to City as they began their overhaul of Chelsea in the weeks that followed their purchase of the club from a sanctioned Roman Abramovich in June 2022.
Raheem Sterling, the marquee arrival of that summer, was signed in large part on the strength of his production and achievements under Guardiola at the Etihad. Boehly was honest enough to admit publicly in March that he made the high-profile purchase of Marc Cucurella from Brighton as an interim sporting director who “had no idea what made a good football player”, primarily because City also wanted him.
As recruitment became more structured under the auspices of an expanding team of senior football executives, the arrival of Shields from a short stint at Southampton in January 2023, following nine years in youth talent identification and recruitment at City, precipitated a greater Chelsea focus on the most promising players from their rivals’ youth system.
Palmer, Lavia, Tosin and Delap have all trodden their own paths from the blue half of Manchester to Stamford Bridge, as have Jadon Sancho (on loan last season) and Jamie Gittens. At various points in the last three years, Chelsea have also looked at City academy graduates Nico O’Reilly, James Trafford and Oscar Bobb.
The influence of Shields has been evident in Chelsea’s first-team recruitment, as well as in their academy restructure following the departures of Neil Bath and Jim Fraser in July 2024.
McFarlane was swiftly elevated to lead the club’s development squad last year before moving up to Liam Rosenior’s backroom staff in January, when fellow Kinetic Academy alumni Harry Hudson and Dan Hogan were appointed to key roles coaching the club’s under-21s and under-18s. Just as significantly, former City academy head of coaching Glenn van der Kraan was brought over and promoted to the role of Chelsea academy technical director in October 2024.
Two other notable staff hires familiar to Stewart and Shields from their time at City are Nick Chadd, Chelsea’s head of performance sciences, who spent three years working in City’s academy, and Woody Dewar, Chelsea’s head of performance analysis, who has worked in various roles at Tottenham Hotspur, Watford and Wolverhampton Wanderers since a two-year stint with City.
Chelsea sources, speaking anonymously to The Athletic to maintain relationships, insist the club’s focus when signing players or hiring staff is always on acquiring the best and upgrading what they have, adding that while a small number of these individuals may have played or worked for City, the vast majority of new personnel on and off the pitch have come from other clubs or organisations.
There is a strong belief within the club that the appointments who have attracted criticism from some supporters will go on to prove their top quality by forging strong careers at Stamford Bridge and elsewhere.
Enzo Maresca’s appointment as head coach in the summer of 2024 can be viewed as BlueCo’s most significant investment in City’s football methodology.
The Italian had an apprenticeship as Guardiola’s assistant in City’s treble-winning 2022-23 campaign on his CV as well as winning the Championship with Leicester City in 2023-24, and as reported by The Athletic at the time of his hiring, one of Chelsea’s considerations in giving Maresca such a long contract (five years with a club option for a sixth) was the possibility that he may be earmarked as the Catalan’s chosen successor at the Etihad this summer.
That particular move may well come to pass, albeit not in the manner that BlueCo would have hoped. Overall, it is reasonable to question just how much positive value Chelsea have gained from looking to City for playing talent and institutional knowledge.
Enzo Maresca (left) worked with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Sterling failed to live up to unreasonable expectations created by his huge contract, which quickly became a millstone. Cucurella has managed to transform himself from a transfer flop into an important and popular starter, albeit one who it is hard to imagine playing for City ahead of O’Reilly or Josko Gvardiol. Stewart and Shields have much higher approval ratings internally than they do among Chelsea supporters disaffected by the club’s recruitment and broader decision-making.
Palmer has been a shining success despite this season’s struggles, but frequent injuries have called into question the sizeable transfer fees paid for Lavia and Gittens. Sancho ultimately proved an unsatisfactory attempt to solve the left-wing problem that endures at Chelsea, and Delap has done little this season to suggest he is good enough to lead the attack for a club with lofty domestic and European ambitions.
Maresca at least came closest to giving Chelsea an on-pitch identity in the BlueCo era, delivering Champions League qualification and two trophies in the process. It was an identity very much borne of Guardiola’s juego de posicion, with control achieved via patient possession and creation through heavily choreographed positioning, often featuring full-backs inverting into defensive or attacking midfield.
Last season, Chelsea could have credibly argued they were closing the gap to City, who finished 2024-25 just two points ahead of them on 71 points, comfortably their worst Premier League haul of the Guardiola era. An optimist might even have pointed to it as proof that BlueCo’s strategy of building a young squad intended to peak just as Jurgen Klopp and Guardiola left the stage, as reported by The Athletic in February 2024, was on track.
But the gulf has ballooned back to 28 points this term, and this month a rejuvenated City cruised to a 3-0 victory at Stamford Bridge. It is now 13 matches across all competitions since a very different Chelsea team got the better of Guardiola’s side, in the 2021 Champions League final in Porto.
Chelsea’s interim coach Calum McFarlane was formerly at Manchester City (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
This will be their last chance if Guardiola really is on his way out. Win or lose, it is hard to shake the feeling that the struggles of this BlueCo project are linked to several key ingredients in the City winning machine that are missing at Chelsea: experience, physicality, the transformational impact of an empowered, visionary coach.
Against the backdrop of Chelsea supporter protests and ownership “self-reflection”, BlueCo’s next head coach appointment will be fascinating.
Xabi Alonso has been exposed to far too much elite football wisdom to be labelled a mere Guardiola disciple, but his style of play offers the path to a positive form of continuity while his status in the game commands far greater respect than any BlueCo hire since Mauricio Pochettino. Andoni Iraola, an impressive yet lower-profile figure and a worker of wonders at Bournemouth, would nonetheless represent a sharp change of tactical direction.
Whatever decision they make, recent history suggests City will be there for Chelsea and BlueCo to measure themselves against, and not just on the Wembley scoreboard on Saturday.
