The Enzo Fernandez saga has rumbled on — but it might finally be concluding.

On Wednesday, The Athletic reported that Chelsea have set a deadline of 5pm on Friday (12pm ET) for Manchester City to make an offer for the Argentina international.

Chelsea have now made it clear that if City — or another club — do not meet their £120million ($16m) valuation of Fernandez by the deadline, he will not be leaving the club this summer.

But why have Chelsea put this into the public domain? Will City make a bid? Do Chelsea have ways to replace him? Do City really need him?

The Athletic has put a series of the key questions to Chelsea reporter Simon Johnson and City reporter Sam Lee. Their answers are below.

Why have Chelsea felt the need to put this out?

Simon Johnson: Chelsea’s first game of the new season is under two weeks away, and understandably they do not want this saga dragging on for the rest of the month, therefore providing a big distraction.

The club have been clear with their valuation of Fernandez from the get-go, so the message is quite simple: pay up or don’t. They also do not want to be scrambling late in the window for a replacement.

New manager Xabi Alonso has spoken to Fernandez since taking over and is happy to have him in his plans. Chelsea are also prepared to welcome him back into the fold after the events near the end of last season, which included handing him a two-game ban for comments made in interviews about club decisions as well as appearing to flirt with Real Madrid.

Chelsea believe he can thrive under Alonso’s direction and want the circus around his future to end.

Given the price Manchester City paid for Anderson (£116m) and Tottenham’s £100m on Sandro Tonali, charging £120m for a World Cup winner will seem justified to those at Stamford Bridge.

Xabi Alonso has spoken to Enzo Fernandez (Peksi Cahyo/Getty Images)

Does it feel like City will make a bid of £120m?

Sam Lee: An overall price of £120m feels very steep, and it is much easier to imagine them trying to bring the price down. However, they are very keen to sign him and have been all summer.

City are determined to back Enzo Maresca this summer, and that includes the desire to sign Fernandez. City will be trying to find out whether Chelsea’s stance is not quite as firm in private as it is in public, even if their decision to set a public price and deadline implies otherwise.

Is it only City who have been pursuing the midfielder?

Simon Johnson: No, other Champions League clubs hold an interest. But there are not many in the game that can afford a fee like this, which is part of the problem if Fernandez has his heart set on a move elsewhere. It should be stressed the 25-year-old has never specifically said in an interview that he wants out.

Talk of a desire to live in Madrid one day prompted a lot of speculation earlier this year. The La Liga club took the rare step of releasing a statement last month insisting they were not pursuing him as a target.

Are there other midfielders City can go after if Fernandez is off the table?

Sam Lee: I’m sure they will have options, but Fernandez is certainly the first choice.

If that does not happen, then they will have to decide whether the others are as suitable, or worth splashing out on.

Why has Fernandez suddenly become an option again for City?

Sam Lee: They had identified him as one of their very top targets before the end of last season.

The relatively late nature of the push may come down to the fact that it has taken a while to get to a position where Rodri and Tijjani Reijnders are edging close to an exit from the club.

Rodri could leave City this summer (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)

Would Chelsea have options to replace him if they needed to?

Simon Johnson: Alonso can call upon six others to play in midfield right now: Moises Caicedo, Romeo Lavia, Dario Essugo, Jordan Henderson, Valentin Barco and captain Reece James. It is very early in their development too, but the Chelsea manager was very impressed with 16-year-olds Mahdi Nicoll-Jazuli and Reggie Watson on the pre-season tour.

Now it should be highlighted that Chelsea had a £64m bid for Bournemouth’s Alex Scott turned down earlier in the window, which indicates how they have other names on their wishlist.

It is customary for all clubs to build an extensive list of possible targets for the near and long-term.

However, it is not easy to get the players you want this late into a window, and the selling club will also know Chelsea have £120m in their bank account if Fernandez goes, meaning they are likely to raise their asking price accordingly.

Would it be better for Chelsea if he leaves or stays?

Simon Johnson: You could say they are in a bit of a win-win situation, as they either keep Fernandez or add £120m to the bank, but they are better off having him remaining in the fold.

It is better if Fernandez stays. Only Joao Pedro (20) scored more than his 15 goals for Chelsea last season, and he got to that figure despite playing in a deeper position.

Yes, there are things he needs to improve on, particularly his discipline and the needless bookings for dissent.

There are sections of the fanbase that will not be sorry to see him go after the things he has said and done this year. But Fernandez is a hard man to replace.

Working with a former world-class midfielder in Alonso will surely take his game on to another level. Fernandez has a mean streak on the pitch which, when channelled the right way, is needed if you want to win big trophies.

Opposition fans are likely going to boo him for his role in England’s defeat to Argentina at the World Cup, where he was arguably the best on the pitch. But that is more likely going to make him raise his game, rather than affect his confidence.

Fernandez was a key player for Chelsea last year (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)

Do City need him?

Sam Lee: That is a matter of debate among the fanbase!

Maybe one of the mistakes people are making is that he is being thought of as a Rodri replacement, though that is not really his game.

Personally, I believe he is a top player who performs a slightly different role, and while he is not the best out of possession, I do believe he has certain intangible qualities that are really useful. I think he’s a clutch player and somebody who brings incredible intensity.

While it would be very different to the Bernardo Silva and Rodri days, and does not look anywhere near as controlled, a midfield of Fernandez and Elliot Anderson is absolutely fascinating if nothing else.

In short, yes, I think they do need him.

Prime Tire Newsletter | This is The Athletic’s F1 newsletter. Sign up here to receive Prime Tire directly in your inbox twice a week during the season and weekly in the offseason.

Welcome back to Prime Tire, where today I was thinking about a classic Formula 1 question: What is Red Bull going to do with its driver lineup?

It comes around summer every year, and this year is no different. Except today, my thoughts are on Red Bull’s junior team, Racing Bulls.

And right before I was ready to submit this newsletter, the shocking news came that Cadillac fired its team principal after just 11 races. So we’ll start there.

I’m Alex, and with the F1 summer break still in full swing, it’s once again just me in your inbox.

Cadillac Change: Lowdon axed as team principal

The email subject “Cadillac Formula 1®®®® Team appoints Marcin Budkowski as new Team Principal” rather changed the course of my afternoon.

Mainly because the claim that Graeme Lowdon was suddenly replaced by Budkowski after “a planned leadership transition as the organization evolves from its initial build phase into the next stage of racing performance” just made me so annoyed.

Lowdon was fired. And Budkowski — who rather tipped his hand when he said he was yet to visit the Cadillac base at Silverstone in the United Kingdom — was suddenly named his replacement. Hardly an orderly, long-planned transition.

Dan Towriss, Cadillac team CEO (and CEO of the motorsport division of majority team owner TWG Global) later told reporters that “Graeme and I always talked about that there would be a transition at some point.”

But he also said “this decision was mine” and “it wasn’t a mutual decision” with Lowdon, who has yet to comment publicly on the matter.

No wonder Towriss “wouldn’t put a timetable” on the length of the “planned leadership transition” when asked about it in the media roundtable Teams call with Budkowski, which followed Towriss informing Lowdon of his exit only this morning.

This all made me think of Christian Horner (don’t worry, I have a point). Not about Horner’s own sudden axing as Red Bull team boss in July 2025, but how, when he first arrived at that team, his own appointment was so sudden a half-drunk coffee from his predecessor remained on his new office desk.

So often, sporting decisions are fast and brutal. I think it would have been better for Cadillac to have been clearer on that from the off. At least Towriss didn’t completely brush off questions about it.

But questions are going to keep coming. Especially as Towriss confirmed the team has “issues” with communications and a silo culture at the team’s Silverstone base. That’s in addition to its place in the back of the F1 pack and its cars regularly catching fire.

And, above Cadillac, TWG’s founder Mark Walter is in the headlines after selling the NBA’s Los Angeles Lakers, with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigating insurance companies Walter owns.

F1’s newest team just got even more newsworthy.

Grades: Your midseason team report card results

Now, let’s go back to last week’s PT, where I presented Luke Smith and Madeline Coleman’s midseason team report cards feature for the 2026 campaign. Afterward, I asked you to assign your own grade for each team.

First up, an apology: PT readers only had six A-F grade options, unlike those with pluses and minuses available to Luke and Madeline.

So, while this is something of an apples and oranges comparison, we can nevertheless see where the two sets of grades differed. And here, two teams stood out.

Both writers and readers assigned A’s to Racing Bulls and Mercedes, B’s to Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull, C’s to Haas, Audi and Cadillac, and an F for the awful Aston Martin effort so far in 2026. But the grades for Alpine and Williams didn’t match up.

In both cases, PT readers gave these squads lower grades than Luke and Madeline. You all graded Alpine a C, rather than B+, and Williams an E, instead of D.

Considering just how badly off the pace Alpine was in 2025, when it switched off development to prepare for its new era with Mercedes power from 2026, a rise from 10th to sixth in the constructors’ standings is worthy of a B, for me.

But Williams, which also turned off 2025 car development very early and made a big deal out of how the huge change in car design rules offered it a chance to rejoin the big teams for the first time in a generation, E feels right.

Sure, Williams overachieved with Carlos Sainz’s two podiums in 2025, and its finishing position as best-of-the-rest behind the top four squads raised expectations for a team building back toward its historic best.

But it has been a very underwhelming start to the new era; there’s just no escaping it for Williams team boss James Vowles and co., while drivers Sainz and Alex Albon are frustrated at the failure to kick on from 2025.

Thanks to everyone who voted on our midseason team report card grades. Now click here to have your say on midseason driver rankings, and we’ll go through the results — you guessed it — in PT next week.

Driver Debacle: Lawson’s last chance at Red Bull?

On Monday, Luke and Madeline revealed their combined top-10 driver rankings for the season to date.

No prizes for predicting Kimi Antonelli in the top spot; it really couldn’t go to anyone else considering this is just his second season in F1. (Again, please head here to have your say on midseason driver rankings!)

But, to let you in on our inner workings for features such as these, when Luke asked me to help rule on Lando Norris and Max Verstappen for the second and third places (I advised putting Norris ahead due to his clear step as a world champion and because Isack Hadjar has beaten Verstappen on merit at times this year), I found myself surprised by one of his and Madeline’s selections.

Namely, Racing Bulls driver Liam Lawson at No. 10. 

There’s no denying Lawson is having the strongest season of his F1 career to date, with impressive points finishes in Monaco and at Silverstone. But his rookie teammate Arvid Lindblad is pushing him hard — particularly in qualifying.

Lindblad being so close to Lawson exposes the New Zealander to risk. Long-held F1 logic suggests a driver will get better with age, so Lindblad already being so close to Lawson’s level after just 11 races suggests Lindblad has a higher performance ceiling overall.

Now, Antonelli unexpectedly blowing Russell away this year exposes a problem with that long-held F1 logic. But this is how F1 teams think about drivers. Red Bull, as the only organization on the grid with two teams, thinks about four (and more, as we’ll see) all at the same time.

Assuming Verstappen stays put for 2027, as appears most likely right now, that creates a bottleneck across the Red Bull and Racing Bulls seats. This isn’t a huge problem for the senior squad, as it’s so happy with Hadjar’s performances since he replaced Yuki Tsunoda.

But a lack of upward options for the Racing Bulls pair is an issue — because another Red Bull junior is currently a favorite to win the 2026 Formula 2 crown. Luke interviewed Bulgarian racer Nikola Tsolov just before the summer break and was impressed by his attitude, as well as his six wins this F2 season.

If Tsolov wins the F2 title, he can’t go back to the feeder category in 2027, per its rules. And if Red Bull opts to promote him to F1 next year — Racing Bulls team principal Alan Permane confirmed he’s “next in line” and “to say he’s on the radar would be a little bit of an understatement” when speaking to reporters at Spa last month — this leaves Lawson exposed.

Lindblad being so good so quickly means he would surely be kept on in any case. Plus, Lawson already had a shot alongside Verstappen and blew it (tough as it was with Red Bull’s early 2025 car handling issues).

No Red Bull driver has ever gone back to its top team after a demotion.

Red Bull team principal Laurent Mekies may be less ruthless than the old Horner/Helmut Marko combo on driver decisions, but that remains to be seen (and also assumes the top managers at the senior team are still making driver decisions for both teams).

But there is a lesson from Red Bull’s history that I think Mekies should heed: 2017 Pierre Gasly.

Having won the 2026 GP2 title under immense financial strain, he was initially sent to race in Japan’s Super Formula series — a top line single-seater category where the cars rival F1 speeds.

Gasly came close to winning it as a rookie, before he was finally elevated to F1 with a third of the season to go in 2017. Red Bull following a similar path would not only give it — and Lawson — some breathing room, but if Verstappen does walk for 2018, it increases its options of filling its slots with its own drivers.

The decisions Red Bull makes on its seats will be one of the key themes to watch when the summer break ends.

Outside the Points

📸 The official F1 website has this delightful selection of images taken during the season so far from photographer Alex O’Conor.

🇮🇹 Mercedes is considering handing Antonelli new engine components he (and teammate George Russell) is almost certain to need at his home race at Monza, Italy, next month due to reliability issues faced earlier in the year.

❗ Luke explained how track limits abuse has been the only real flaw during Antonelli’s season so far.

‼️ And Madeline outlined the complex car development race playing out at most races, which is even more important to the story of each event as team form has been changing significantly around the new parts they are putting in their cars — common in the early seasons of any new F1 era.

📫 Love Prime Tire? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.

Villa had fought since the start of the year to register the 6ft 4in Madjo following his £10m arrival from Metz.

Under-18 players cannot complete international transfers, but the club argued that since Madjo was born in London he should be exempt – despite having three caps for Luxembourg in friendlies.

Since those games, he accepted an England Under-17 call up last year and has four goals in nine appearances, scoring on his debut against Venezuela.

With England searching for their next No9 once Harry Kane eventually retires, Madjo could force himself into the conversation in the coming years.

Fifa does allow some exemptions for minor players to make moves, including if a 16 or 17-year-old transfers within the European Union – something the UK is no longer part of.

The battle was finally won just eight days ago – after Villa took their case to CAS in July – and Madjo was added to the travelling party for Salzburg, having not been included in the initial squad.

With Ollie Watkins rested after World Cup duty and Tammy Abraham left on the bench, the youngster was given the responsibility up front by Emery having scored four pre-season goals.

His strike at the Red Bull Arena, holding off Ecuador international Willian Pacho to volley in John McGinn’s cross, was arguably the hardest chance of the trio he had in a first half full of promise.

It cancelled out Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s opener for PSG, only for Desire Doue to hit a second-half winner after a video assistant referee (VAR) check.

Before his goal, the hulking Madjo had earlier planted a free header over from three yards and shot wide, but was a constant nuisance for 11-time Ligue 1 winner and Brazilian centre-back and captain Marquinhos.

“He played because he was showing us his capacity to work and be demanding,” said boss Emery. “It is not just about scoring goals, it’s about defending and how he has the commitment and discipline tactically. He was doing that.

“I wanted to play with young players and watch their progression. Brian started scoring goals [in pre-season] against Walsall and Real Sociedad.

“Now the reality is we have shown their capacity, but they have to keep being consistent, demanding and keep performing at the level they were.”

Villa have been looking to sign a new striker – Chelsea‘s Nicolas Jackson has been a summer target – but Madjo’s availability now gives Emery a different option and dilemma before the Premier League season opener at Brighton on 23 August.

“You’ve got a young player coming, especially on a stage like this one, against PSG, getting in those scoring positions and not allowing that disappointment to stay with you,” former Villa striker Dion Dublin told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“I saw Brian Madjo, he had his hands on his head for a couple of seconds and then he got into another scoring position.

“He was brave enough to get back into that scoring position and if he keeps missing it’s not frightening him. He’s happy to have that pressure on his shoulders. I’ve been there, you need to be able to deal with it. At 17, he seems to be doing it easily.”

Madjo – and fellow teenage forward George Hemmings – were given their chance against PSG with Emery insisting he would not rush Watkins, Emi Martinez and Ezri Konsa back for the game.

The trio are due to return next week after being given a month off following the World Cup, with Martinez losing the final with Argentina and Watkins and Konsa helping England to third place.

Madjo expertly deputised for Watkins, despite missing his earlier first-half chances, until he was replaced by Abraham with 18 minutes left.

Whether Konsa will still be a Villa player for the league opener against Brighton remains open to debate with Arsenal expected to step up their pursuit of the defender.

Villa have already sold Morgan Rogers in a record £117m deal to Chelsea and Youri Tielemans to Manchester United, and Konsa’s departure would be a another bitter blow after winning the Europa League last season and qualifying for the Champions League.

Keeper Martinez will stay, despite interest from Juventus this summer.

Emery added: “We decided to play this match with the players who were ready to play, were fit and trying to avoid some risk with some players. It is very important how we are going to manage the players.

“I am trying to use my experience to avoid some mistakes which i can understand can happen.

“I can feel free with my decision and proud of the players.”