Enzo Maresca accepts the best version of his Manchester City side is yet to come as he battles the early weeks of the Premier League season and a significant squad rebuild.
The Blues boss has seen a host of players depart this summer and while City broke their transfer record to sign Elliot Anderson for £116m and this week confirmed the arrival of Ayyoub Bouaddi, there is still work to be done in the transfer window.
Transfer window and pre-season challenges
Maresca wants to add to his squad before Tuesday’s deadline and the squad turnover coupled with players returning later than normal for pre-season due to the World Cup mean it’s difficult for the new boss to get his ideas across quickly and hit the ground running.
“It has been complicated because we start new concept, new things, new manager, even if there are similarities with the previous one (manager),” Maresca said ahead of the Premier League trip to Crystal Palace.
Manager’s assessment of the squad
“But in the end the manager is different, the players are different, it has been a little bit complicated because players are late (back from the World Cup), that's why we have the Marc Guehi solution or probably for tomorrow another different solution. It is my duty, my job, to try to find solutions for the players to try and win games.
“Since I joined the club, I knew that 10 years with the same manager, also the idea was to change players for different reasons. Some are not playing many minutes and decide to leave, players in many circumstances and reasons why, they decide to leave, so I knew that there was a big change to the squad but it is not something I am worried about.”
Looking ahead to the season
Asked if we might not see the best of Maresca’s City until later in the season, the Blues boss added: “The only thing I can say is the same thing I say after the Arsenal game and the same thing is now after the Bournemouth game. There are things that we did well in the previous game, there are things we did quite well against Bournemouth, but there are many things that for sure we are going to do better.”
