Manchester City face Atletico Madrid in Seoul on Sunday in their final pre-season friendly before the Community Shield against Arsenal. At Saturday's press conference, Enzo Maresca and Rico Lewis addressed Rodri's future, Divine Mukasa's lack of minutes, and the squad's reset under the new manager.
Rodri's future and squad reset
Rodri is the subject of transfer interest from Barcelona, who have already had one bid rejected. City are holding out for a fee of at least £60million. Lewis said: "I don’t think I need to say that. Everyone in this room and everyone in the world knows how good Rodri is but it’s football. People leave, people stay, and I don’t think it changes the landscape of anything the manager wants to do here. Everyone knows how good the manager is and it shows with his accolades."
Maresca said he has given all players a fresh start: "No, the only thing I said since I started to the players is that it is a reset. All of them start at the same level and pre-season will dictate a little bit the transfer window."
Mukasa's minutes and Trafford's exit
Divine Mukasa has yet to play in pre-season. Maresca explained: "Divine is a good player. The only problem is that we have so many players that we have already made many rotations and we struggled to find some minutes for him, for Floyd [Samba], for Xavier [Parker]. There are three or four players that didn’t get minutes in the friendly game but are training with us every day and we can see the way they are improving."
On James Trafford's departure, Maresca said: "There are players that unfortunately, like James last year, didn’t play a lot and at the end they work every day to get minutes and to play games and when they don’t play it’s normal that they are sad and want to play more games and that was probably the case with James. The club was happy with him, everyone was happy with him, but at the end he was probably looking for more games."
Lewis on Maresca and Guardiola
Lewis said of Maresca: "I’ve known him since the Treble season, a lot of the players know him. From the first week he was very direct and clear, very honest. The patterns and the way he wants us to work is clear." On differences from Guardiola, he added: "In terms of football only so much can be different. Getting fit, getting to know the patterns, it’s pretty similar. He wants us to have the new ideas. It’s about implementing them on the pitch - as you’ve seen in the games."
Lewis also reflected on being one of the older players: "It’s strange. Obviously I’m still quite young but I definitely feel a bit like that with some people leaving. That’s part of football. People come, people leave, people stay. I’m excited to see what the season holds."
Maresca on pre-season and Atletico
Maresca praised the squad's attitude: "The willingness has been very good since day one. They have been very open-minded with a new manager who has arrived and changed some patterns and structures, the way we want to play on and off the ball. This has been the main thing. Then the work ethic is important and these two weeks since we started it is also important to share time with players. I need to know them, I need a connection with them. It’s important for the future."
On replacing Guardiola, he said: "No pressure, just privilege. For me it’s a huge privilege to be here and be City manager. In terms of expectations, this is a club that needs to win titles and compete for titles and we are going to try to do exactly the same."
On Atletico's new signing Lee Kang-in, Maresca said: "He is a very good player. We are excited to play against Atletico tomorrow and against the new players. I’m sure that he will be very good for Atletico Madrid."
