It would be easy to put Manchester City’s recent struggles down to their appeal against Premier League charges or the summer exit of the legendary Pep Guardiola but the issues facing the team right now have much to do with Enzo Maresca.  

Initially, Maresca looked like an ideal replacement for Guardiola, winning his first seven Premier League games and providing a seamless continuity that felt as if it proved City had bettered the attempts of both Manchester United and Arsenal in replacing an iconic manager. 

Man City already rely far too much on Elliot Anderson

The departure of Rodri – one of the finest midfielders of his generation – was always going to leave a void in City’s midfield but that in itself is not the biggest issue in play here. Summer signing Elliot Anderson, after all, has been arguably City’s best player this season, to the point where not many onlookers are discussing the £116m fee it took to prise him from Nottingham Forest. 

The problem isn’t that the England midfielder isn’t doing enough. It’s that he’s doing far too much. Fellow new recruit Enzo Fernandez is not suited to operating in the pivot alongside him and it would be too much to expect Ayyoub Bouaddi to fully adapt to life in the Premier League right away given his lack of experience. 

This season, Anderson has completed over three times as many tackles (21) than Fernandez (6). The 24-year-old has doubled the Argentine’s haul for interceptions (6 to 12), contested almost double the number of duels (124 to 67) and it’s the same story with duels won (74 to 30).  

While it is true that Anderson has played almost 200 minutes more than Fernandez, those statistics are still eye-opening. Even in an attacking sense, Anderson’s numbers far outdo Fernandez’s, as is shown above.

Anderson is not getting much support in either phase of the game and that is a major problem.

Maresca’s Enzo Fernandez dilemma

Maresca, of course, worked with Fernandez at Chelsea and clearly sees a lot of value in the 2022 World Cup winner. Back in September 2024, the Italian said of the midfielder: “When we have the ball, he is playing like an attacking midfielder, and is dropping next to Moi [Moises Caicedo] when we don’t have the ball to help us and give us defensive balance.” 

The problem is, however, that Fernandez was shuffled around the Chelsea team at times. Only two months after hailing the former Benfica midfielder for his versatility, Maresca said after dropping him: “Romeo [Laiva] and Moises [Caicedo] give us physicality and strength in the middle. This is why we found the option of Malo [Gusto] in the pocket. Otherwise, when we play with Enzo it has to be with one of Moi or Romeo, and Enzo moves forward we struggle in the middle for physicality.” 

The aforementioned Malo Gusto was also used in an inverted full-back role to accommodate for Fernandez at times, due to the problems he had with physicality that Maresca openly admitted.  

It is not a case of the Argentina international being a bad player, by any means. Fernandez is capable of brilliant attacking moments, but that does not mean he is suited to what Maresca is asking him to do in the Premier League. Still, part of the success of the Guardiola era is that very good players still suited the system the Catalan deployed, they were not simply shoehorned in. The system was the most important thing, not the players within it.   

The proof that the Fernandez-Anderson midfield pivot is costing City

City have not kept a clean sheet since beating Liverpool in mid-October. They have been lax defensively and there are concerns about the individual performances of star players such as Marc Guehi and Gianluigi Donnarumma.   

It would be unwise to blame any individual for these issues and even more foolish still to criticise Anderson in particular. Yet, Nottingham Forest’s first goal in their 3-1 over City on Saturday showed exactly the issue that Maresca faces by persisting with this pivot.

Forest defender Jair Cunha outmuscled Josko Gvardiol to win the ball about halfway into City’s half and, after gaining possession, was allowed a free run into the box before slotting past Donnarumma. Rayan Cherki had dropped deep and was the closest player to the felled Croatian when he lost the ball, though he was either unable or unwilling to sprint back to provide cover.

Anderson was left scrambling to get back to cover while Fernandez stood alongside Erling Haaland at the top of the pitch way out of the defensive side of the game. City’s soft midfield core was exposed and punished ruthlessly even when they were bossing the possession.

Had that goal happened in isolation, perhaps one could write it off but the system was again exposed when an isolated Anderson was beaten to the ball by Xaver Schlager as Forest countered after yet more City possession, teeing up Liam Delap to score Forest’s second.  

Maresca inherited Man City problems but he is making it worse

Any team who lose a player as influential as Rodri would suffer, while Bernardo Silva’s exit also must be mentioned. It’s also not as if City were incredible defensively in Guardiola’s last season either, but the title challenge they at least mounted was built on that very midfield pivot. 

Not expecting there to be teething problems would be unfair on Maresca but that doesn’t absolve him of criticism. He has openly spoken about Fernandez’s issues with physicality, yet has largely deployed him behind Cherki – who is hardly renowned for his defensive prowess – which has left Anderson with far too much to do.

City do not have problems to seek right now and though a lot of them are out of Maresca’s control, the midfield imbalance is currently a direct result of his tactical gameplan.