MANCHESTER, England, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Manchester City manager \u2060Enzo Maresca remained tight-lipped about Rodri’s future on Friday amid speculation linking their Spain midfielder with \u2060a move to Barcelona, saying “anything can happen” before the transfer window closes.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty comes the \u200cmorning after an apparent picture of Rodri travelling on a budget Ryanair flight from Madrid to Liverpool went viral on social media, with the former Ballon d’Or winner spotted carrying a small suitcase bearing his name, national team flag and squad number.<\/p>\n
“First of all, we already \u200bsaid the transfer window is open, we can buy and sell \u2060players, anything can happen,” Maresca told reporters \u2060ahead of Sunday’s Community Shield clash against Premier League champions Arsenal in Cardiff.<\/p>\n
“I’ve just seen Rodri now in the \u2060building, \u200cI gave him a big hug, he looks good, so we’ll see what happens.”<\/p>\n
Maresca confirmed the World Cup winner is fit to return to training after undergoing back surgery at the end of July.<\/p>\n
Asked \u2060if he was aware of reports that Chelsea had set a \u200bFriday deadline for bids for the \u200cLondon club’s Argentina midfielder Enzo Fernandez and whether that meant City would be doing any transfer \u2060business in the next \u200b24 hours, Maresca smiled and said City will not make any new signings on Friday.<\/p>\n
While talk of Rodri, a cornerstone of City’s success in recent seasons, potentially leaving the club has dominated the headlines, Maresca insisted his attention was on Sunday’s \u2060match rather than the transfer window.<\/p>\n
“For sure there are things we \u200bneed to do. For now, how many, I don’t know. It can be one, it can be two (players),” he said. “Depends also if players are going to leave. It depends.<\/p>\n
“Now in this moment, 48 hours before a final, my first \u2060in this club, my focus is not about players leaving or arriving, it’s just how we can prepare the best way in the game and try to win the final.”<\/p>\n
The Italian dismissed any suggestion that the Community Shield, which sees the Premier League champions face the FA Cup winners, should be viewed as a glorified friendly, \u200bsaying City were determined to start the season with silverware.<\/p>\n
“For me personally it’s \u2060a trophy. And when the trophy is there, the final is there, you always try to win the game,” \u200bMaresca said. “So no friendly at all. It’s a trophy that we’re going \u200cto try our best to win, to win the \u200bfirst trophy.”<\/p>\n
Maresca is seeking his first silverware as manager of City after taking charge following the departure of Pep Guardiola at the end of last season.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Lori Ewing; Editing by Ken Ferris)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANCHESTER, England, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Manchester City manager \u2060Enzo Maresca remained tight-lipped about Rodri’s future on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":855034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,6675,85],"class_list":["post-855033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-football","tag-na","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}