Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca has had something of a break during this international window but now must be utterly convincing
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - AUGUST 13: Enzo Maresca, head coach of Manchester City, speaks with Ruben Dias of Manchester City during an open training session hosted by Manchester City at Joie Stadium on August 13, 2026 in Manchester, England. (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
Enzo Maresca will also be looking for help from his Manchester City leaders
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Enzo Maresca has to deal with scenarios that he thought may never come. The coach had to consider the possibility that Manchester City would be found guilty of serious Premier League charges when he agreed to join the club, but was given strong reassurances that it would not happen.
City are appealing an overwhelmingly guilty verdict that was published last week, yet until then Maresca has to speak about a brutal reality that currently lies ahead. There are many unknowns still to come, it's just that nearly all of them work out badly for City.
Nearly two weeks will have passed since the news first broke when Maresca finally gets to talk to his players together in the same room. A quirk of the timing of it all means that most of his squad have been on international duties so it will be Thursday when they are finally able to sit and discuss the seismic events that have gone on.
Conversations will already have gone on, and several players may well have even spoken directly to chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak as well, yet the team meeting on Thursday will be the moment where Maresca has to look into the whites of his players' eyes and set their stance out for the coming weeks and months. They will be together again for the majority of the next four weeks before the next international break, but none of those occasions will be as significant as this one.
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On Friday, Maresca meets the press as he conducts his press conference before the Liverpool game. This will be the first time any member of the City hierarchy has spoken in public since the guilty verdicts dropped, and another marker for what is to come given this is a topic that will not be leaving press conferences any time soon.
This will be significant for many fans looking to see and feel how they should react. Pep Guardiola came out swinging when he stepped up after the charges dropped in February 2023, and this was hugely important for supporters to rally behind the club in their defence.
With the Liverpool game not until Sunday afternoon, clips of Maresca's answers will be played out on Friday lunchtime and evening, all day Saturday and then Sunday morning and lunchtime so getting the right message across will be key for City and their manager.
Somewhere in that time, Maresca also has to find time to get his plan to beat Liverpool across to his players so that they head to Anfield with everything they need to try to turn five straight wins into six. But those two big meetings before then - one private, one public - will go a long way to shape how City respond this season on and off the pitch.