Enzo Maresca has revealed Manchester City’s players repeatedly asked him if Enzo Fernandez was joining before the Argentinian completed his deadline day move.
Fernandez signed for City from Chelsea for a British record-equalling £125million late on Tuesday night.
The deal ended a long-running saga with City having been linked with the World Cup winner for most of the summer and Maresca believes his experience can only make the dressing room stronger.
The City manager said: “He’s a winner and when you belong to a squad and another winner arrives they are always happy.
“I can promise you that in the last four or five days four or five players in the squad were asking if he was coming or not because they wanted him to be with us.
“When you want to compete or win, it’s much more important to have players that already know how to do that than players who never have done it in the past.
“Enzo is not the only one. This squad has many players who know how to win titles and know how to compete, and this is what we were looking for.”
Fernandez could go straight into the City side to face Coventry at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, although he will not be wearing the captain’s armband.
Maresca said last week he wanted to sign “one or two more captains” but, even though Fernandez was his leader when Chelsea boss, he has not specifically earmarked him for that role at his new club.
“The four captains are Ruben (Dias), Erling (Haaland), Marc Guehi and Gigi Donnarumma,” said Maresca.
“But Enzo is ready. I know him quite well, I know what he can bring to the team. He’s a winner, he has a winner’s mentality. He knows how to win – World Cup, Club World Cup.”
Fernandez’s arrival was accompanied by that of winger Iliman Ndiaye from Everton, completing a summer rebuild of the squad that has cost close to £430m.
Maresca said: “I’m very, very happy for the effort from the ownership, very happy in the last days.
“Iliman and Enzo arrived and now the squad is complete, it’s finished. Now it’s time to work.”
With Omar Marmoush among a number of players to have left, there is now no obvious centre forward cover in the squad for the prolific Erling Haaland, should it be needed.
Maresca, however, is confident that he has enough versatility in his ranks for others to be able to deputise, with forward Antoine Semenyo the most likely stand-in.
“We have different options,” said the Italian. “Antoine can be there. It depends on the gameplan but we can have different players for that position.
“I’ve liked since day one we can use players in different positions. It’s like having more players.
“Nico (O’Reilly) can be full-back or attacking midfielder. It’s like having two or three players but in the end they are one player. It is good to be versatile.”
Winger Jeremy Doku remains on the sidelines this week with a calf injury but Matheus Nunes is fit again and back in contention.
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