Barcelona's €60m Bid for Rodri Intensifies Pressure on Manchester City
Barcelona have returned to Manchester City with an improved bid of about €60m (£51m) for Rodri, cranking up the pressure over the future of the club’s midfield linchpin.
City knocked back an opening offer of €45m without a second thought, but the new proposal edges closer to their own valuation of the 30-year-old, who captained Spain to World Cup glory and lifted the Ballon d’Or in 2024. This is no longer a speculative enquiry. It is a serious move for one of the most influential midfielders in the game.
Rodri has made clear he wants Barcelona. That stance now hangs over everything City do in the market. Inside the club there is a growing acceptance that the era of their metronomic No 6 may be drawing to a close.
City line up Enzo Fernández as Rodri succession plan
With that in mind, City have turned their attention to Chelsea’s Enzo Fernández as a potential replacement. The problem is the price. Chelsea value their captain at around £120m, a figure that would make him one of the most expensive midfielders in history.
Chelsea are holding firm on that number. Any deal, if it happens, is likely to be built around a hefty guaranteed fee and performance-related add-ons rather than a major discount. Enzo Maresca is pushing hard from the City dugout: he knows Fernández well after working with him for a season and a half at Stamford Bridge before his Chelsea tenure ended in January.
Fernández flourished under Maresca. The 25-year-old was central to the Chelsea side that finished fourth, won the Europa Conference League in 2024-25 and lifted the Fifa Club World Cup last summer. He arrives with pedigree already burnished by the 2022 World Cup triumph with Argentina.
Should City manage to land him, there will be consequences elsewhere in midfield. One potential casualty is Tijjani Reijnders, who could be moved on to balance both numbers and finances.
Leadership reshuffle on and off the pitch
Rodri’s determination to join Barcelona leaves a leadership gap as much as a tactical one. Fernández, now Chelsea’s captain, would not just bring energy and bite. He would bring a voice. City see his combative style and willingness to take responsibility as qualities that could harden Maresca’s evolving side in the most intense games.
The recruitment drive has already been aggressive. City have paid £116m to sign Elliott Anderson from Nottingham Forest and are close to wrapping up a deal worth around £85m for Ayyoub Bouaddi from Lille. These are big, deliberate investments aimed at reshaping a squad that has dominated domestically but now faces a summer of upheaval.
Chelsea, braced for the possibility of losing their captain, are working on their own contingency plan. They are understood to have enquired about Bournemouth’s Alex Scott as a potential replacement should Fernández depart. One midfield domino move could trigger another.
Rulli returns as Trafford departs
Amid the noise around Rodri and Fernández, City quietly completed another piece of business on Wednesday, announcing the signing of Gerónimo Rulli on a two-year deal following James Trafford’s move to Leeds.
Rulli, 35, returns to a club he briefly called home in 2016-17. This time he comes in as an experienced, steady hand in goal, fully aware of what awaits him.
“My job now is to train hard, get to know the players and staff and do everything I can,” he said.
City’s summer is starting to look like a full-scale rebuild. If Rodri does walk out for Barcelona and Fernández walks in from Chelsea, it will not just change how City play. It will redraw the fault lines of power in the Premier League’s midfield battleground.
