Soccer
Enzo Maresca happy with Enzo Fernandez’s Man City debut against Coventry
Enzo Maresca was pleased with how Enzo Fernandez slotted into his Manchester City side after the club’s record signing was pressed into his debut earlier than planned in Saturday’s 1-0 Premier League win over Coventry.
Fernandez, a £125million deadline-day arrival from Chelsea, was initially named among the substitutes four days after signing but was thrust into the starting line-up after Nico O’Reilly suffered a back injury warming up.
It was his first start since the World Cup final but Fernandez quickly settled in and it was the Argentinian who started the move from which Erling Haaland scored the only goal in the 26th minute.
“The reason why Enzo was on the bench was just because he arrived two days ago,” Maresca said. “I know how frustrating it has been for Enzo the last two, three weeks. So the idea was to give him some minutes, but at the end he played from the start.
“I think it was quite good, I was happy also with his performance. It is much more easy when a player you already share time together (joins) because they know exactly what you want. We know each other very well, I know how good he is and I know that he is going to help the team to win games.”
City could have been out of sight by the end of the first half, with Rayan Cherki hitting the post and Haaland passing up another excellent chance, allowing Coventry to threaten a late equaliser as Gianluigi Donnarumma made a key save from Ellis Simms late on.
“Nine (times) out of 10 in this kind of game at the end you finish conceding,” Maresca said. “We kept them alive. The first half finished 1-0 but we could have scored more and at 2-0 it’s a different game.
“But the way we suffered together until the end, defending throw-ins, set-pieces, was good. Not all wins are going to be nice wins.”
Although City utterly dominated possession, Frank Lampard was pleased with how his players battled to the end, finishing the match having had almost as many chances as their hosts.
“A good performance for us,” he said. “Disappointed to lose the game. I felt we deserved something from it. Probably a draw I think is a fair result.
“To come to City with the talent that they have, we all know the ability in their squad, but I thought our defensive organisation was great. I thought we limited them maybe as much as you can do here, to big, big chances. And we created three big ones of our own and some moments of pressure.”
The rather cruel fixture list has sent the Championship winners to both Arsenal and City in their first two away games. While defeats there are not surprising, that emphasises the damage done by last weekend’s home defeat to fellow new boys Hull.
“What we can’t do is lose belief,” Lampard added. “We’ve got to take confidence from today and look forward and understand that they’ve been two very tough games. But today we can walk out of here with our heads held very high and we need to take that forward to Brighton next week.”
