Manchester City have bought Enzo Fernandez from Chelsea and splashed out a huge sum to buy him
Enzo Fernandez
Enzo Fernandez
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Enzo Fernandez didn't have to cost £125m. If Manchester City had moved earlier in the window they could have shaved £5m off, and if Chelsea had held their nerve on deadline day and City had been desperate enough the West London club could have got closer to their £135m valuation.
Essentially though, Fernandez was always going to be in that ballpark. For all the heads that have been lost around such a high fee - a joint British transfer record, no less - it should not come as a surprise that City paid what they did to give Enzo Maresca his No.1 target.
Even with no knowledge of City or of football, basic inflation wants a word. If you bought a bag of potatoes for £1.07 in January 2023 on the same day that Fernandez joined Chelsea, you'd be probably just about as giddy as one can be around potatoes if it only cost £1.25 more than three years later.
Fernandez admittedly hasn't led Chelsea to the Premier League title in that time but he has been one of their best players. If football only rewarded those who won the biggest trophies then there should have been outroar across the board that Bruno Fernandes was voted as the best player in the division last season; there wasn't, and there shouldn't be because it is possible to be one of the best players even if you are not at one of the best or biggest teams.
Even in a Chelsea team that underperformed, Fernandez stood out as one of the best midfielders in the league. In a summer where Elliot Anderson had already moved for £116m and Morgan Rogers for £117m, the Argentine star was never going to be underpriced (and no, you can't knock money off just because you don't like Argentina's conduct on a football pitch or their country's view of the Falklands).
The summer kicked off with an acrimonious divorce between City and Chelsea as manager Enzo Maresca cost £17m, and it is always more difficult when former managers come back to raid their old clubs - particularly when the scars are still raw. Relations between the clubs are better than you might think, but Chelsea's openness for business did not equate to any mates rates.
And if Maresca wanted Fernandez at the start of the window, City really needed him as it went along and Rodri left for Barcelona and Tijjani Reijnders headed off after just one season. City brought in Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi but they needed leaders as much as quality footballers to replace Rodri and Bernardo Silva as well as Reijnders and Nico Gonzalez.
Fernandez knows better than anyone else in the City squad how to implement Maresca's ideas on the pitch and can instantly form one of the four captains in the squad. Even if Ruben Dias takes the armband on a permanent basis, it is arguably worth having Fernandez take instructions to deliver to his new teammates between goals at least in these early weeks to smooth the transition.
That doesn't mean Fernandez will be worth £125m and he may indeed not be, but in the current market and given City's particular needs it is easy to understand why that fee has been deemed reasonable.