Adam Wharton and Alex Scott, or Maza. That’ll do.
With Rodri and Tijjani both out the door, you’re losing two completely different things. Rodri takes the entire first phase with him. Tijjani takes the box arrivals and the running from deep. You cannot replace both with the same profile, which is exactly why Bouaddi and Anderson alone don’t complete this midfield.
Anderson gives you the physical spine. Ground coverage, duel-winning, recovery running, progressive passing under pressure. He’s a controller who happens to have legs. Bouaddi is the long-term 6 with the versatility to cover elsewhere while he develops. Neither of them, right now, is the man who unlocks a low block.
Adam Wharton fills the Rodri-shaped hole in a way nobody else in this market does. He’s a genuine deep-lying playmaker. Receives on the half turn under pressure, breaks lines with disguised passing rather than volume, and dictates tempo without needing to touch the ball fifty times a half. He’s not Rodri physically and never will be, but the build-up security and the passing intelligence are the closest available profile in England. Pair him alongside Anderson and you’ve got one man doing the running and one man doing the thinking, which is the same principle City used for years.
Alex Scott or Maza is the Tijjani replacement, and it has to be one of the two. Scott gives you connective play, tight-space quality and the box arrivals that Reijnders never consistently delivered. Maza offers the same interior profile with more raw creativity.
Either way, you need an 8 who moves between the lines rather than another midfielder who sits in front of the back four.
🗣️🇰🇷 Matheus Nunes interview
“I would tell my friends all the time, ‘I'm not a full-back, I'm not a full-back’. And they would always say, no, but you play so good there, you play so good.
“The team-mates, Bernardo and Ruben, were so annoying all the time as well, they were in my head constantly as well, ‘You were good there, you were good there. You need to accept it.’
“And I was like, no, no, no no no no no no no no no. All the time. But yeah, at a certain point you just have to see what the people are saying. You can't be denying it for the rest of your life. If you do, maybe you miss your chance. And if I did that I would have missed it.”
@TheAthleticFC
🚨🚨💣 EXCLUSIVE: Liverpool agree loan deal to sign Ronald Araujo from Barcelona, HERE WE GO! 🇺🇾
Verbal agreement club to club with Barça now approved by director Deco.
New centre back for #LFC with a surprise bomba.
🚨🩵 Geronimo Rulli to Manchester City, here we go! Deal closed now between clubs with Olympique Marseille.
Rulli will sign a two year deal until June 2028 plus option until June 2029.
Gero, authorized to fly for medical at #MCFC.
Exclusive story from last week, confirmed.
🚨🩵 Manchester City are expected to close all details of Ayyoub Bouaddi deal soon and then focus efforts on more signings.
Another midfielder can join with Rodri talks underway + new winger possible based on Savinho-Spurs deal.
Rulli, also close.
🎥➕ https://t.co/wQfDHpKtHW
I personally don’t like the idea of Manchester City signing Enzo Fernández. I hate it. He’s not what we need. He’s not what we represent as an institution, as a football club.
But this club has a history of respecting what coaches need and backing them fully. So if you’re signing Enzo and Maresca genuinely believes he’ll win us another Champions League or Premier League with him, then sign him.
Just know I’ll be on the frontline to cook him when it doesn’t work out the way they imagined. Because we warned them.