The **Premier League** is back and on Sunday the eyes of the football world will be on **Manchester City** for their return to action at **the Etihad** for the first time post **Pep Guardiola** as they begin a new era with **Enzo Maresca** at the helm when **_the Blues_** host **AFC Bournemouth.**
The 46-year-old couldn’t contain his excitement as he prepares to take charge of **_the Blues_** for the first time in the **Premier League**.
He said: “Very excited to start this new chapter, this new journey. The target is to carry on in the same way of the last 10/15 years. Very happy to finally play our first game at home, so yeah, excited.”
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**Manchester City** will be preparing for Sunday’s **Premier League** opener without their defensive midfielder enforcer, **Rodri** after the 30-year-old swapped Manchester for Catalunya on Tuesday where he joined **La Liga** champions, **Barcelona** ending his seven year spell at **the Etihad**.
**Maresca** was keen to highlight that if a player wants to leave then it’s more complicated to convince them to stay.
He said: “It’s quite clear when they want to leave and then it’s difficult for any reason they want to leave then it’s complicated to convince them to stay, so it happened with **Rodri**, the same thing is happening with **Savinho**.”
“Since day one he asked me that he wants to leave so now we are waiting, but it’s complicated. You know when the players are thinking that they need a new challenge or they want to change because they want to go back to **Spain**, or they want to play more minutes for different reasons. So it’s become complicated to convince them to stay.”
“Apart from **Rodri**, the rest of them have one thing in common and that’s they didn’t play a lot. At the end we said many times we just finished a session and they all work everyday because at the end they want to play and when they don’t play they prefer to leave.”
“**Omar Marmoush** is still here, still with us. It's a different situation to **Savinho** and we’ll see what happens. I think it’s always complicated when a player is leaving and someone has to arrive if you are not ready, but we see if Omar stays or we see what’s happens for sure we will have to have more options in case a player go out as I’ve said a few times if they go out, some has to arrive.”
“I’m not worried, I’m not concerned. Since day one we know exactly what we need. We are working together with the sporting director, with the club and again it’s 11 days to go and many things can happen”
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**City** suffered a setback in their preparations last weekend as they suffered a 3-0 defeat to **Premier League** Champions, **Arsenal** in the **Community Shield** in Cardiff, but their Italian boss made it clear that his side ‘need to compete from day one.
He said: “The **Arsenal** game we wanted to win, we didn’t win. After analysing the game for different reasons, the focus has to be just about **Bournemouth**, the **Premier League** and all the games that we have ahead”
“It’s clear that there is change, managers, players, but we are a club that we cannot wait for time to compete, so we need to compete from day one.”
“It’s very important because we know that when we win games, fans are happy, but I’m happy when we win games. When we don’t win everyone is upset, you sleep less. Many things when you don’t win games.”
“That’s why it’s important also to win games because we all are more happy, but not doubt that we are going to win games.”