Maresca on O’Reilly injury worry, Fernandez debut, and Ndiaye needing to improve after Man City beat Coventry | OneFootball

Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca says Nico O’Reilly’s back injury does not appear to be serious after he was forced to withdraw during the warm-up ahead of their 1-0 win over Coventry.

O’Reilly was initially named in City’s starting XI but felt something in his back shortly before kick-off and was unable to feature.

“Nico felt something in his back, it doesn’t look like something serious but he was not able to play,” Maresca said.

Erling Haaland’s goal secured victory for City, while new signing Enzo Fernandez made his debut in place of O’Reilly after joining the club earlier this week.

Fernandez had initially been set to make a substitute appearance, but was handed a starting berth following O’Reilly’s late withdrawal.

“The reason why Enzo was on the bench was because he arrived two days ago,” Maresca said.

“I know how frustrating it has been for Enzo the last two or three weeks. So the idea was to give him some minutes but at the end he played from the start.

“I think it was quite good and I’m happy also with this performance.”

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Maresca believes Fernandez’s previous relationship with him will help the midfielder settle quickly at City.

“Yes, it’s much easier when you have a player that you already share time together,” he added.

“It’s much easier because they know exactly what you want. Enzo, we know each other very well.

“I know how good he is and I know that he’s going to help the team to win games.”

Iliman Ndiaye also made his debut for City, but Maresca admitted the forward still needs time to adapt to his new surroundings.

“Iliman just had two sessions with us,” he said.

“He needs to understand how to move.

“Most of the time he was moving in the wrong way, wrong position. But again, he needs to learn and for sure he’s going to learn.”

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