Barcelona's Third Bid for Rodri Amid City’s Enzo Pursuit

Barcelona have made their move. Again.

The Catalan club have now lodged a third bid with Manchester City for Rodri, underlining just how determined they are to bring the Spain international to the Camp Nou. The latest offer takes the guaranteed fee to 70 million euros, a significant jump from where this saga began.

Barça opened talks at around 45 million euros. That was never going to move City. The second proposal, close to 65 million, also fell short. The third, though, lands in a different bracket and has changed the mood around the deal.

Inside the Camp Nou, optimism is growing. There is a belief that an agreement could be sealed as early as this weekend. The feeling is not confined to Catalonia either. In Manchester, there is an expectation that the negotiations are heading towards a settlement rather than a standoff.

Letting Rodri go would be a seismic sporting decision for City, but a logical financial one. Cashing in would ease the pressure of Financial Fair Play, opening up room on the balance sheet and in the squad to move decisively for a replacement.

That brings the focus back to Enzo.

The Argentina midfielder remains the preferred option to step into any gap Rodri might leave at the Etihad. Chelsea had set a deadline for talks, but the expiry of that date has not killed the story. If anything, it has sharpened the edges.

New City manager Enzo Maresca, who worked with Enzo at Chelsea, drew a firm line on Friday. He made it clear City will not be dragged into a race against the clock dictated from Stamford Bridge. No panic, no bidding under duress.

Chelsea’s stance is equally firm. The message from the London club is blunt: they control the situation. Enzo is under contract until 2032, and they want the market to remember it. Any sense of a soft exit route has been removed.

City, therefore, are operating in two phases. First, close out the Rodri chapter. Only once the final outcome of that negotiation is known will they return fully to the Enzo pursuit.

According to Fabrizio Romano, City’s hierarchy have kept the lines warm with Enzo’s representatives, staying in regular contact over recent days. The interest has not cooled. The parameters have.

The picture in essence is unchanged: City want Enzo. The detail, though, is very different to just 24 hours ago. On Friday, Chelsea had effectively cracked the door open, setting out clear terms that resembled a de facto release clause. That door is no longer ajar.

Now City must decide how far they are willing to go, how much they are prepared to pay to force open Stamford Bridge and pull an Argentina midfielder out of a contract that runs into the next decade.

The next move, on both fronts, belongs to Manchester.