Top News

Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca has explained his decision to leave Phil Foden out of the club's official four-man captaincy group. In spite of the England international being one of the club's homegrown stars, the Italian coach has gone with a different leadership set-up after a summer of major changes at the Etihad.

Leadership hierarchy confirmed at the Etihad

Maresca has now finalised Manchester City's leadership group for the new season, but Foden's absence was a notable one. The 26-year-old, who has been a regular in the first team since breaking through from the academy, was in consideration for the role but eventually did not make the main group of four.

The manager confirmed that captaincy responsibilities this season will be shared by four players. "The captain is Ruben [Dias], Erling [Haaland], Marc Guehi and Gianluigi Donnarumma," the manager told reporters during his Friday press conference while explaining the order. While Dias and Haaland are part of the established core of the squad, the inclusion of comparatively newer arrivals Guehi and Donnarumma underlines a fresh leadership approach under the new coaching set-up.

Why Foden missed out on the official group

Maresca was quick to underline Foden's importance to the club's identity, calling him a "guy from the house" because of his local roots and long association with the City supporters. However, the Italian said he gave preference to players who already had particular experience as captains when making his final choice. The City boss went into detail about his thinking on the 2023-24 PFA Player of the Year and admitted it was not an easy decision.

"First of all, because Marc was already captain with Palace," Maresca said. "So he has the experience. Gigio is the captain of the Italy national team, so he has the experience. The reason why I decided for them is because I can see them helping the teammates and the dressing room to behave in the right way."

He added: "These are the four that are going to be the captains. But I was also thinking about Phil, because Phil is one of the guys from the house. He’s not in that group, but for me he’s also one of the captains, one of the players that belong to that group."

Positional changes for the England star

Apart from the captaincy discussion, Maresca has also been speaking about Foden's place in his tactical system. The versatile forward has spent the opening weeks of the Premier League season on the right wing, mainly because of an injury to Jeremy Doku.

"I think Phil’s best position is in the middle," the Italian coach insisted. "But he’s doing an effort to help the team. Because for the first two games we didn’t have options in the wide area, because Jeremy was injured.

"No doubt that Phil’s position in the middle is much better. But I’m very, very happy with Phil since day one. He’s working very good, even when he has played wide in the last two games, he was good."

Adaptability and the way forward

Maresca's readiness to use Foden in different roles reflects the player's strong football intelligence and technical ability. The manager feels top-level players should be able to carry out more than one job for the good of the team, especially during periods when injuries create problems. He praised Foden's response to those tactical tweaks, pointing out that the player has remained professional despite not spending every match in his preferred number 10 role.

The manager finished by restating his confidence in Foden's ability to affect matches from anywhere across the front line, saying: "You can see that inside the pitch he’s much better. But at the end, Phil is going to play in a different position. Because he’s a good and good players, they can play in different positions."