“It’s a bit difficult to convince players when they are already convinced,” Enzo Maresca said on Friday of Tijjani Reijnders’ prospective move to Al Qadsiah, only a year after joining Manchester City. “You need to change their thoughts, that is not always easy.”
Maresca had revealed earlier in pre-season that James Trafford, who has signed for Leeds United, and Omar Marmoush, who could yet leave the club, had gone into the summer having already decided to leave the club, due to frustrations from the previous season.
“Tijjani’s situation is like James Trafford’s situation, some more players, but I think when the club, the player, the manager, they all think the same way, that probably the best decision for a player is to go, you have to go.”
So how did it get to this? One of the key signings of last summer’s much-needed refresh is already on the way out, and as Maresca suggests with Marmoush, who signed 18 months ago, there are similar cases.
There is plenty to like about Reijnders’ game — he arrived at City as Serie A’s player of the season, with his ability to carry the ball, dictate the game and score goals marking him out as somebody who could make a real impact on any team.
City badly needed energy in midfield after an often disastrous 2024-25 season, during which they won just 11 of 35 games between October and March, and with Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan leaving, Reijnders appeared to provide exactly the energy and creativity that would be needed.
City have prioritised players who can beat a man with a dribble in the past few years, and Reijnders ticked that box, too. The idea with several of their signings last summer was to bring in players with the game-changing traits that would be needed in the Premier League, and that any weaknesses could be worked on.
There were always some weaknesses with Reijnders, however, and those have proven to be relevant. It was evident even in his fine season in Italy that he offers very little defensively, not having the nous to spot where a second ball might drop, let alone challenge for it successfully.
His 15 goals in all competitions the year before last represented by far his best goalscoring season – in fact, it was the only season in which he scored more than seven (that was in 2022-23, where his tally was boosted by three goals in Conference League qualifying). Take goals out of his game, coupled with his lack of defensive contribution, and you get a far less impressive player. He is also 28, suggesting he should have had a catalogue of impressive seasons behind him before he made the move.
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But another issue may have been that he did not have an obvious place in the City squad to show his full range of abilities. Pep Guardiola wanted to harness Reijnders’ goalscoring, playing him high up the pitch in the areas around Erling Haaland, in a similar way to how Gundogan would sniff out opportunities in the penalty area.
“We knew he’s a special player arriving in the box,” Guardiola said last summer. “People in Italy know him perfectly. He can play as a holding midfielder but loves to arrive to the box to help strikers like Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush.”
Reijnders did sometimes “arrive” in the box — popping up on the edge of the area to meet a pull-back — but when teams were sat deep against City, he was usually permanently stationed in the front line, which did not seem to get the best out of him.
After a famously sparkling Premier League debut at Wolverhampton Wanderers, he increasingly struggled to replicate the creative spark and eye for goal that was shown at Molineux, but was regularly picked in the starting XI for months at a time when Guardiola stuck with the same line-up for weeks on end.
Strangely, after he enjoyed a purple patch in December and the start of January, in which he scored four in seven league games — a run that suggested he was finding his feet — he then suddenly dropped out of the team.
Tijjani Reijnders did not provide the attacking output Manchester City had hoped for (Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images)
Sources around Guardiola’s coaching setup said he was not played in the deeper role, the one that seemed to suit him so well in Italy, because they simply did not need him to do that job due to having Bernardo Silva and Rodri, particularly after the Spaniard returned from injury in January.
Between the start of February and the end of the season, he did not get off the bench in nine of City’s 14 league matches, and only started two. Sources close to the Netherlands international, who wished to remain anonymous to protect relationships, indicate that he felt there was little faith shown in him, and had started to consider a move away, even though he and his wife had settled well in Manchester and made friends in the squad.
“They all work every day, they all do sessions every day and at the end of the week they all want to play a game,” Maresca added on Friday, about players, like Reijnders, who are seeking a move away. “When they don’t play, they struggle to understand or they struggle to see the reason why and I can understand that after one season some of them would like to play a little bit more. It’s a normal situation.”
There is likely to be considerable upheaval in the City midfield this summer, with Barcelona pushing to sign Rodri, and both Ayyoub Bouaddi and Enzo Fernandez potentially arriving at the Etihad Stadium, after Elliot Anderson signed during the World Cup.
Reijnders may have found the opportunity to play deeper had he stuck around, which may not have fixed his issues out of possession, but may have given him more opportunities to show off his other skills.
“The way he was playing in pre-season games, I was quite happy with his performance overall,” Maresca says. “Because I know Tiji from Italy, from Milan when he was there, I know him quite well, I know that he was probably playing in a different position; he likes to play a little bit more deep than higher on the pitch, but again in pre-season he was good, now we’ll see what happens and we’ll decide.”
Another issue is that several of City’s recent arrivals are keen to move on, raising questions about their suitability to the club in the first place.
Marmoush also looks short of the required standard, although it is admittedly difficult to be on the bench for weeks on end and only play when Haaland is rested or unavailable. Rayan Ait-Nouri has also admitted that he was “not very happy” at times last season, but is happy to stay and work with Maresca.
Nico Gonzalez is another to have been repeatedly overlooked last season but he has said he is content to be on the bench as long as the team thrives.
Since City started their rebuild in January 2025, they have signed Marmoush, Gonzalez, Abdukodir Khusanov, Vitor Reis, Rayan Cherki, Reijnders, Ait-Nouri, Trafford, Marcus Bettinelli, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Antoine Semenyo and Marc Guehi.
Khusanov and Cherki look very promising and Donnarumma brings certain much-needed traits, though he struggles with others. Reis has been on loan but is highly rated behind the scenes and Bettinelli is a third-choice keeper, but Trafford has moved on, Marmoush and Reijnders are set to go, Ait-Nouri is looking for a breakout season and Gonzalez is behind Mateo Kovacic in Maresca’s pecking order. Semenyo and Guehi, both signed in January, appear to be major improvements and City will be hoping that the rest of their business this summer is as impressive.
The final weeks of this transfer window will be crucial for City, and perhaps for director of football Hugo Viana, who has overseen many of the deals during the past 18 months, since replacing Txiki Begiristain.
Reijnders seemed to tick a lot of boxes for City but was ultimately deemed unsuited to what they needed, and has decided to cut his losses despite the change of manager representing the potential for a fresh start.
The move to Al Qadsiah in Saudi Arabia means we may never know how suitable Reijnders is to the Premier League, or top-level football generally, and it is hard to judge him fully given he is leaving City after just one season. But there were concerns from the outset and they have ultimately contributed to a failed move.
