Maresca addresses Man City departures with Rodri future still unclear

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca has discussed the potential of more departures at the club, with a number of stars linked with moves away.

James Trafford became the latest to exit at the Etihad in recent days. The English goalkeeper joined Leeds United for £40 million and follows experienced trio Bernardo Silva, John Stones and Nathan Ake in leaving the club this summer.

“There are players that unfortunately, like James, last year didn’t play a lot,” explained Maresca. “At the end, players work every day to get minutes and play games.

“When they don’t play, it’s normal that probably they’re sad, they want to play more, and probably this is James’ case.

“The club was happy with him, everyone was happy with him, but at the end probably he was probably looking for more games.”

A number of further departures can still be expected too. The future remains unclear for the likes of Savinho, Tijjani Reijnders, Omar Marmoush, Mateo Kovacic and Jack Grealish, among others.

The City boss continued: “The only thing I’ve said since we started to the players is that for me it’s a new reset.

“All of them, they all start at the same level and the pre-season will dictate a little bit the transfer window.

“This has been a general message for all of them. The ones that played more minutes last year or the ones that played less minutes.

“But at the end, the message has been the same for everyone. For me it’s a reset.”

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Rodri has also been heavily linked with a move away from the Etihad, in what could be one of the biggest transfers of the summer. Spain’s World Cup-winning captain had been chased by Real Madrid, but Barcelona now look to be leading the race for the midfielder.

The Catalan club have had an initial bid rejected for the 30-year-old.

“Everyone in this room, everyone in the world knows how good of a player Rodri is,” said team-mate Rico Lewis. “But it’s football, people leave, people stay.

“Obviously I don’t know every detail about this, but it’s football. I don’t think it changes the landscape of anything the manager wants to do here.

“Everyone knows how good of a player he is and that shows with his accolades. But yeah, we’ll see.”

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