No one has made more Premier League appearances under Enzo Maresca than the manager’s namesake in midfield, Enzo Fernandez.Across two seasons and 54 games, the Argentine racked up over 4,500 league minutes for Chelsea with Maresca in the dugout, during which time only Bruno Fernandes and Mohamed Salah created more chances from open play.The manager has since taken up the job at Manchester City, but according to reporting in The Athletic’s DealSheet on Tuesday, he is keen on a reunion with one of his most trusted players.With World Cup-winning captain Rodri potentially leaving City, the club have already dug deep to bring in Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116million ($153m). Lille midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi, 18, is also heavily linked, while the likes of Nico Gonzalez, Tijjani Reijnders and Mateo Kovacic remain at the club. Phil Foden and Rayan Cherki take up more advanced, creative roles, while Rico Lewis and Nico O’Reilly are nominally full-backs, but can also tuck inside to provide even more cover in the centre of the pitch.Even with expected departures, City would seem to be well-stocked.But Maresca’s interest in reuniting with Fernandez persists for a quoted valuation of at least £120m.So what exactly does Maresca see in his former midfielder? And how different is he to the other options that City already have?Life after Rodri could soon become a daunting reality for City should his move to Barcelona materialise before the end of the month.His departure after seven seasons would have seismic implications on the way that City can play; no other midfielder combines his passing quality with his instinctive sense of defensive positioning — or at least be able to come in and start performing straight away — allowing team-mates to push on without fear of being hit on the break.Under Maresca. City’s recruitment drive looks to be aimed towards replacing the sum of Rodri’s parts. In Anderson, they have a player with athleticism, a tireless runner who made more defensive recoveries than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues last season.Bouaddi is similarly snappy without the ball, but has potential to become a peerless tempo dictator from deep.Fernandez would bring a more immediate aspect to the post-Rodri midfield: attacking intent, and plenty of late runs into the box.The idea would likely be for Anderson to patrol deeper while Fernandez drifts forward, but their technical quality would allow them to rotate. Either can get forward or link play at the base of midfield while Foden or Cherki take up their preferred positions further on.Man City interested in Enzo FernandezSam LeeFernandez would bring a talent for timing his off-ball movements to arrive just in time to sweep home cut-backs or finish from the edge of the penalty area, an invaluable skill as City work the ball methodically towards the box.The pizza charts below use SkillCorner data to analyse how midfielders across Europe’s top seven leagues move without the ball per 30 minutes of team possession.Both Anderson and Fernandez rank highly when it comes to supporting the build-up, but while Anderson’s forward runs are more geared towards underlaps — attacking the space inside to take players away from advanced full-backs and wingers — Fernandez aims to crash the dangerous areas inside the box, as shown by his high cross receiver rating.Given that both players naturally drifted more to the left last season, it would create an interesting dynamic with O’Reilly, a dangerous attacking full-back who also likes to mix up his off-ball movement to pull the opposition apart.Digging further into SkillCorner’s data, Fernandez made 42 cross receiver runs that led to a team shot within 10 seconds. Only four players managed more in the Premier League last season, but Fernandez is the only name in the top 10 who does not play as a centre-forward.Mapping those off-ball movements onto the pitch helps to illustrate the variety of Fernandez’s movement, making diagonal runs from both the left and the right, while also frequently starting his movements from close to the half-way line, difficult runs for defenders to track when the timing is right.Whenever the ball is worked wide into a promising position, the 25-year-old is rarely far away.Below against West Ham United, we see Maresca’s team set up in a shape that could be mirrored at City.They build in a three, with one full-back (Marc Cucurella in this instance) tucked inside and another (Malo Gusto) up high and wide. City’s right-back Matheus Nunes would be suited to the Gusto role here, while O’Reilly or Josko Gvardiol would both be strong options to take Cucurella’s position and pick their moments to get forward.Moises Caicedo is the sole receiver — which may be where we see Anderson — while attacking midfielders and wingers form a five across the attacking third, with the big striker Liam Delap up top.Fernandez takes up that spot in the left half-space, where he most frequently receives the ball.As the move develops with neat combination play down the opposite flank, Fernandez continues to linger before spotting his opportunity to attack in frame two.With centre-back Jean-Clair Todibo watching the ball, he attacks his blindside and steals a march on Aaron Wan-Bissaka, in position to tap home Estevao’s simple ball across the face of goal.Fernandez’s movement is elusive, choosing his moments to hang back, and picking up on signals from his team-mates to be aggressive and attack the space.Here against Brighton & Hove Albion, we see the familiar build-up shape, this time with Joao Pedro playing up front.The Brazilian drops into midfield, pulling centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke out of position, a sign for Fernandez and his midfield partner Andrey Santos to look for gaps up ahead.Joao Pedro knocks the ball back to Caicedo, who finds a defence-splitting pass down the flanks for Reece James.Having made his move early, Fernandez is perfectly placed to attack the blindside of makeshift defender Carlos Baleba, arriving on cue to head home the cross.City have a similar profile in their squad in Reijnders, another box-to-box midfielder who can exploit the gaps with runs from deep.But despite a strong start to his City career, the Dutchman has struggled to nail down a place, not quite able to slow play down and dictate tempo in quite the same way as some of his ultra-talented team mates.Fernandez would have no issues adapting to such responsibility on the ball, with his player role dashboard below illustrating his ability to impact the game across all phases. Classified as an all-action midfielder, he moves possession forward confidently, evades pressure, and also finds time for those storming runs into the box to offer threat in the final third.We see Fernandez’s energetic movement and versatility in the build-up to another chance against Aston Villa.To begin with, he drops deep to support the build-up, rotating into Jorrel Hato’s spot on the left of defence and pushing the defender on. As the move progresses, he offers an overlapping run for Alejandro Garnacho out wide, before drifting inside to linger in his favourite spot between the lines.Once again, the move develops out wide after great work from Caicedo, and Fernandez spots his opportunity to get forward, arriving just in time for the cut-back that Cole Palmer eventually overhits.For Fernandez to join such a busy midfield would say a lot about Maresca’s faith in the likes of Reijnders, Gonzalez or Kovacic to perform in such varied roles. Fernandez himself is not always the most authoritative defender when the opposition look to counter, not as athletic or as springy as the likes of Anderson or Caicedo, but his attacking output and diverse skillset on the ball justifies his inconsistency without it.He would not come cheap, and alongside Anderson and Bouaddi, would take City’s outlay to over £300m for three new midfielders.But Fernandez would offer guaranteed output with those box-crashing runs, and fit seamlessly into a familiar system in a lighter shade of blue.