Enzo Maresca has said he does not want to disrespect former club Chelsea by discussing Manchester City’s reported interest in Enzo Fernandez.
Manchester City are understood to be interested in signing Fernandez from Chelsea, following the sale of Rodri to Barcelona.
Chelsea had agreed to sell Fernandez if a side met their £120m asking price, though had set a deadline of August 14th. City, however, could still move for the Argentina international before the official transfer window deadline on September 1st.
Ahead of City’s Premier League opener against Bournemouth, Maresca said he would not disrespect Chelsea by talking about their players.
“Unfortunately I need to always answer in the same way,” he said.
“Enzo is a Chelsea player and I’m not going to talk about players who are not with us, first of all, because I think it’s a lack of respect, and second of all because I don’t like when different managers talk about our players.”
Though Maresca said City know ‘exactly what they need’ before the deadline, the Italian is confident he already has a squad that can compete.
“I think we have a good squad, for sure. It’s a context, it’s not an excuse, but a context – when you make many changes, not only the manager, Rodri was here, John [Stones] was here, Bernardo [Silva] was here.
“It’s a big change, but it doesn’t mean that we won’t be ready to compete. We need to be ready, I want to compete. The reason I’m here is because I want to try and win titles, and carry on what this club stands for in the last 15 years.
“Where we are now, it’s a bit complicated because we started one month ago. But the intention is to compete as soon as possible.”
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