Manchester City spent £458m this summer, the biggest single-window outlay in Premier League history, and used most of it to demolish and rebuild a midfield. Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Tijjani Reijnders and Nico Gonzalez all left. Enzo Fernandez, Elliot Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi arrived for a combined £327m. What Enzo Maresca did not buy, in 79 days of trading, was a second centre-forward.
Erling Haaland is 26 and the only recognised striker in the first-team squad. Omar Marmoush has gone to Tottenham on loan with an obligation to buy, Divin Mubama is at Southampton, and the fallback plan is that Antoine Semenyo or Iliman Ndiaye can fill in through the middle if required. For a club that has just committed close to half a billion pounds to a rebuild, that is a conspicuous piece of hope in the plan.
A midfield torn up and replaced
The scale of the turnover is the story. Rodri, the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner who anchored four Premier League titles and a Champions League, went to Barcelona for £65m. Reijnders lasted a single season before leaving for Al Qadsiah at £52m. Bernardo Silva, the captain, departed. Ruben Dias now wears the armband.
In their place, City paid a joint-British record £125m to Chelsea for Fernandez on deadline day, matching the figure Liverpool gave Newcastle for Alexander Isak a year earlier. Anderson cost £116m from Nottingham Forest and is the designated Rodri successor. Bouaddi, an 18-year-old Morocco international, arrived from Lille for £86m — the most expensive teenager in Premier League history, comfortably past the £58.9m Manchester United committed for Leny Yoro in 2024.
Maresca, appointed in June to replace Pep Guardiola, has the personnel to run the two shapes he favours: a box midfield with two holders, or a diamond with one. Anderson sits, Bouaddi deputises, and Fernandez — a World Cup winner who scored 15 goals in his final Chelsea season and won the Club World Cup and Conference League under this manager — plays higher. Director of football Hugo Viana backed the head coach on every one of those deals, and senior figures at the Etihad have privately described themselves as delighted with the business.
The number nine nobody covered
Haaland has started the season as he usually does: two goals in two games, two wins from two. That is precisely why the gap is easy to ignore and dangerous to leave. City’s attacking system is built around a striker who occupies the last defender and converts the chances a possession side manufactures. Semenyo has played the role in cup ties. Ndiaye, signed from Everton for £60m rising to £65m, can operate centrally. Neither is a like-for-like replacement, and neither has done it across a Premier League season.
City have been here before, and it did not go well. When Julian Alvarez was sold to Atletico Madrid in 2024, the squad spent months without a credible alternative to Haaland, and the Norwegian’s mid-season dip coincided with a title defence that fell apart. The lesson of that campaign was that Haaland’s availability is not a minor variable — it is the difference between a functioning attack and a team passing sideways in the final third.
Rotation is the other cost. A Premier League season plus Champions League plus domestic cups is 50-plus fixtures. Guardiola never solved how to rest Haaland; Maresca has fewer options than Guardiola had.
What it means for Maresca’s first season
The financial framing matters. City’s £458m gross drops to roughly £208m net once sales are counted — more than £300m came back in, with Savinho’s £75m exit and the Rodri and Reijnders fees doing the heavy lifting. This was a restructuring, not a spree, and it was funded by the same squad it dismantled.
That leaves Maresca with a specific, measurable problem to manage until January. Three new midfielders need to cohere quickly in a system none of them has played in for City. Anderson has to be Rodri without the six years of Guardiola coaching that made Rodri. And every one of those questions becomes secondary if Haaland pulls a hamstring in October.
Judgement on a £458m window usually waits until May. This one may be settled sooner, by something entirely outside the transfer committee’s control.
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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