Barcelona's Improved Offer for Rodri Sparks City Midfield Changes

Barcelona have returned to Manchester City with an improved offer of around €60m (£51m) for Rodri, cranking up the pressure on the Premier League champions to make a decision on their midfield lynchpin.

City dismissed Barça’s opening bid of €45m without hesitation. This latest proposal, though, lands much nearer to their internal valuation of the 30-year-old, who captained Spain to World Cup glory and lifted the Ballon d’Or in 2024. The numbers are moving. So is the player.

Rodri has made clear he wants Barcelona. With that stance hardening, the sense around the deal is no longer if, but when.

City turn to Enzo Fernández

Anticipating Rodri’s departure, City have started to move their own pieces. At the top of their list sits Chelsea’s Enzo Fernández, though prising him from west London will be expensive.

Chelsea value their captain at around £120m. That figure is steep even for City and is expected to force negotiations around a structure heavy on add-ons and performance-related clauses rather than a straight cash fee.

Enzo Maresca is pushing. The City manager knows Fernández well from their season-and-a-half together at Chelsea before Maresca’s tenure ended in January. Under him, the Argentina international became a pillar of a side that finished fourth, won the Europa Conference League in 2024-25 and lifted the Fifa Club World Cup last summer.

At 25, Fernández already carries a World Cup winner’s pedigree from Qatar 2022. City view him as a midfielder who can step straight into a leadership role, bringing aggression, range of passing and personality to a dressing room that may soon lose its most reliable organiser in the centre of the pitch.

If Fernández arrives, City are expected to release at least one midfielder. Tijjani Reijnders is among those who could be moved on to balance both the squad and the books.

Chelsea brace for a domino effect

Chelsea, for their part, are not pretending this will be easy to navigate. They are holding firm on the £120m valuation, but are already working on contingencies in case City finally meet their demands.

The club are understood to have enquired about Bournemouth’s Alex Scott as a potential replacement should Fernández leave. It is early-stage interest, yet it underlines how seriously Chelsea are taking City’s pursuit of their captain.

Losing Fernández would strip Maresca of the player who set the tone for his Chelsea side. Keeping him, on the other hand, would test City’s resolve on how far they are willing to go to rebuild their midfield in a single window.

New faces, old connections at City

While the Rodri saga rumbles on, City’s wider rebuild is already under way. They have spent heavily, bringing in Elliott Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116m and closing in on Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille in a deal worth around £85m.

On Wednesday, they added experience between the posts, announcing the signing of Gerónimo Rulli on a two-year contract following James Trafford’s move to Leeds. The Argentina goalkeeper returns to the club he was previously on the books of in 2016-17, this time as a seasoned presence rather than a project.

“The 35-year-old said: “My job now is to train hard, get to know the players and staff and do everything I can.”

A simple brief, but one that fits the mood at City: work, adapt, move on.

Because if Barcelona finally land Rodri and City respond by dropping a nine-figure sum on Enzo Fernández, this will not just be a change of faces. It will be a complete reimagining of the champions’ midfield – and a defining call on what kind of team Maresca wants to build in his own name.