Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez made his Manchester City debut just four days after completing his move from Chelsea, and the midfielder was thrown in from the start after an unexpected change before kick-off.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez had initially been named among the substitutes, but an injury to Nico O\u2019Reilly during the warm-up meant the 25-year-old was asked to step into City\u2019s 4-1-4-1 immediately. It was a rapid introduction to his new surroundings, yet he looked comfortable throughout his 76 minutes at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
After leaving Stamford Bridge with 170 appearances behind him, Fern\u00e1ndez wasted little time showing what he can offer in sky blue. He played with composure in possession, helped move the ball into advanced areas and appeared freer than when carrying much of the midfield responsibility at Chelsea.<\/p>\n
His most notable contribution arrived in the move that led to Erling Haaland\u2019s opener in the 26th minute. Fern\u00e1ndez collected the ball on the right of midfield and drove forward before releasing Antoine Semenyo with a fine pass down the flank. Semenyo\u2019s first-time ball into the area then set up Haaland to head home.<\/p>\n
Fern\u00e1ndez also came close to registering an assist of his own in the 58th minute. With his back to Haaland and facing the crowd, he flicked the ball across goal for the striker, who finished the move, only for the offside flag to deny what would have been his first City assist. He later helped create another chance when Rayan Cherki struck the woodwork.<\/p>\n
The numbers reflected a tidy first outing. Fern\u00e1ndez completed 66 of 73 passes, made one chance and recorded five line-breaking passes, the most of any player in the frontline. He also contributed defensively with a clean tackle and an important recovery, while avoiding any fouls.<\/p>\n
There were still a couple of moments he will want to improve, including a shot that sailed over from the edge of the box and a dribble past that could have been costly in a tighter match. Even so, the debut offered a clear indication of his value to City.<\/p>\n
After the match, Maresca explained the change of plan: \u201cThe reason why Enzo was on the bench was just because he arrived two days ago,\u201d the manager said in his postgame press conference. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fern\u00e1ndez made a sharp City debut after a warm-up injury forced him into the starting XI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19174,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,238,172],"tags":[1836,180,182],"class_list":["post-19175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}