Manchester City have equalled the British transfer record with a \u00a3125m deal to sign Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez from Chelsea, who were left raging after their attempts to replace the Argentina midfielder were dashed by Monaco reneging on an agreement to sell Lamine Camara on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
On a day of twists and turns, City emerged in a strong position after they bolstered their attack by signing Iliman Ndiaye from Everton for up to \u00a365m and secured one of Enzo Maresca\u2019s biggest targets on a five-year deal. Chelsea<\/a> held out for a huge fee for Fern\u00e1ndez and it seemed they were going to find a replacement for him as the transfer window drew to a close.<\/p>\n The club moved to agree a \u00a347m fee with Monaco<\/a> for Camara, who was poised to sign a six-year contract with the option of an extra year. Chelsea swooped when Everton\u2019s attempts to sign the USA striker Folarin Balogun ran into difficulties. It left Monaco needing to raise funds from elsewhere, prompting Chelsea to revive their move for Camara after having a \u00a338.1m offer for the 22-year-old Senegal midfielder rejected earlier in the day.<\/p>\n Chelsea had a written agreement with Monaco but were stunned by the Ligue 1 club pulling out of the deal as the deadline approached. Sources called Monaco\u2019s conduct \u201cdeeply unprofessional\u201d. As an extraordinary situation developed it emerged that Everton, who have also loaned Jack Grealish from City, had refused to give up on Balogun, renegotiating the fee for the former Arsenal forward only for that deal to also fall down just after midnight.<\/p>\n The collapse of Camara\u2019s move did not lead to Chelsea cancelling the sale of Fern\u00e1ndez to City. The deal means City have spent \u00a3327m on midfielders this summer following the arrivals of Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for \u00a3116m and Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille for \u00a386m.<\/p>\n \u201cI could not be happier to be here, and I am ready for the challenge of helping City continue winning trophies. This is a club built for success,\u201d said Fern\u00e1ndez, who becomes this country\u2019s most expensive player alongside Alexander Isak, who joined Liverpool from Newcastle for \u00a3125m a year ago.<\/p>\n \u201cI pride myself on continually improving my game. Anyone who\u2019s worked with me will know how hard I train every single day and how much I put into matches. I give absolutely everything and I can promise Manchester City that will continue now I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n Iliman Ndiaye also completed his move to Manchester City on a busy deadline day for the club\u2019s sporting director, Hugo Viana. Photograph: Manchester City FC<\/p>\n Maresca has a good relationship with Fern\u00e1ndez after coaching him at Chelsea and a reunion has been on the cards for a while. City opened talks with Chelsea on Monday night and will feel they have successfully rebuilt their midfield after selling Rodri to Barcelona and losing Bernardo Silva to Real Madrid, while also selling Nico Gonz\u00e1lez to Newcastle. They were also not put off even after Chelsea\u2019s unofficial deadline for clubs to lodge bids of \u00a3120m for Fern\u00e1ndez passed last month.<\/p>\n Fern\u00e1ndez has been angling for a way out of Chelsea since March and his departure was announced in a short statement on the club\u2019s website. The 25-year-old, who scored 31 goals after joining from Benfica for \u00a3106.7m in January 2023, initially had his sights set on joining Real Madrid. He grew disillusioned following Maresca\u2019s acrimonious split with Chelsea this year. Fern\u00e1ndez, the unofficial vice-captain, spoke out after Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain in March. Chelsea responded by banning him for two games.<\/p>\n Fern\u00e1ndez reported back to training after the World Cup and was booed by Chelsea fans during a pre-season friendly against Real Sociedad at Stamford Bridge. He featured in the club\u2019s opening first game of the season, coming off the bench to help Xabi Alonso\u2019s side to beat Fulham, but was left out of Chelsea\u2019s next two fixtures.<\/p>\n Chelsea came round to the view that a sale was in their interests. There is a feeling within the club that Fern\u00e1ndez, who won the Conference League and Club World Cup during his time in west London, had not shown himself to be vice-captain material.<\/p>\n Chelsea have made in the region of \u00a3500m in loans and sales this summer. They finished the window by selling Marc Guiu to RB Leipzig for \u00a316m and loaning D\u00e1rio Essugo to Strasbourg, Robert S\u00e1nchez to Como and Mykhailo Mudryk to Tottenham<\/a>. Tosin Adarabioyo joined Spurs on a permanent deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City have equalled the British transfer record with a \u00a3125m deal to sign Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez from Chelsea,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-880689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}