Chelsea tried to set a special deadline the other week and be proactive in finally settling the multi-month saga of Enzo Fernández’s future, but, predictably, that was hardly the last word in the story. Manchester City remain very much linked with our (former?) Vice-captain, presumably at a fee higher than the £120m demanded back then — though that’s all just conjecture as well.
Adding further fuel to the fire was Xabi Alonso’s decision to not start Enzo in our first game of the season last night,
preferring a combination of Roméo Lavia and Reece James in the (injury-enforced) absence of Moisés Caicedo as well. (Enzo did replace Lavia for the final 25 minutes.)
Alonso claimed that the decision had as much to do with fitness as anything else — Enzo was among the last to come back from post-World Cup holidays — but he also admitted that he just wants the transfer window and the whole saga to be over at this point.
“In football, I am not surprised by anything. We will see. My wish is that we know what will happen for the future but we will see this week.”
-Xabi Alonso; source: BBC MotD
Oh, he gone.
The trouble with doing business so late in the window of course is that we wouldn’t have much time to react with any potential replacements — even if we have a contingency plan (Adam Wharton? Martín Zubimendi?) in place.
