Enzo Maresca Pre-Match Press Conference vs Birmingham
Maresca on injuries to McAteer, Nelson, Cannon, and Souttar
“It’s just Kasey who is out and Harry Souttar who came back from international duty with a small injury. Tom and Ben are fine. Kasey, he is much better, but I don’t know when he’s back.”
Maresca on the £90m loss and managing how the squad deal with it
“After the Premier League charge, the EFL, the accounts, hopefully it’s finished! I said already many times. We cannot control that. The lawyers are in charge. We can just focus on our games.
“I try to convince myself and convince the players that the only thing we can worry about is the games. Even if it’s something that is there, it’s not something we can control.
“Until today, they showed in the games that they are just focused on the games.”
Maresca on goals from high turnovers as City look to press aggressively
“It’s something I said many times, that we try to press the opposition every time. The good thing is that when you recover the ball, you are very close to the goal, and because we bring so many players, we have many players ready in the attack. We work on being aggressive. I said after Norwich, that out defenders defend with 50 metres in behind, so we have to be brave and quick. We try to manage this. Everybody is talking about Wilf. Wilf is helping us off the ball because he is defending very close to the goal. Off the ball he’s a big weapon for us. He helps us to recover the ball higher.”
Assessing Birmingham with Rowett in charge for only two games
“They just changed manager. The manager who is now in charge is different. Stansfield, James, they are all attacking players who are good players. With the new manager, they have played two games. QPR away with a line of five. Preston at home with a line of four. Are they going to play with line of five or line of four? It’s complicated. We don’t know what they are going to do. We’ll just try to be ready and prepare both.”
Maresca on synergy between fans and players compared to start of season
“At the start, the synergy between the players and the fans was not the best. Now after seven or eight months, it’s much better. I can understand about the frustration with recent results. Now it’s important to have them behind us. It can be a big boost and a big push for us."