{"id":24581,"date":"2026-08-22T08:24:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T08:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24581"},"modified":"2026-08-22T08:24:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T08:24:00","slug":"man-city-2026-27-season-preview-enzo-maresca-has-uphill-battle-ahead-erling-haaland-under-more-pressure-than-ever-to-deliver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=24581","title":{"rendered":"Man City 2026-27 season preview: Enzo Maresca has uphill battle ahead &#038; Erling Haaland under more pressure than ever to deliver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div aria-label=\"main body\">\n<div>\n<p><span>Ryan McAidoo made his senior debut for City last season, and marked the occasion with a goal in a thumping 10-1 victory over Exeter in the FA Cup. The 18-year-old also registered 25 goal involvements across all youth competitions in 2025-26, and played 91 minutes in City&#8217;s FA Youth Cup final win over Man Utd.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Maresca drafted the youngster into his squad for the pre-season clash with Inter in Hong Kong, and threw him in as a half-time substitute. Operating from the right-flank, McAidoo proceeded to terrorise the Inter backline at every opportunity, showing off his blistering speed and dazzling footwork.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The England U18 international, who joined City from Chelsea two years ago, came agonisingly close to firing the winning goal in normal time, too, clipping a shot against the post after a brilliant run. Unfortunately, McAidoo was subsequently laid low with a shoulder injury that kept him out of City&#8217;s remaining pre-season games, but Maresca had seen enough.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>&#8220;One of the surprises has been Ryan McAidoo, that no one expected,&#8221; said the City boss. &#8220;I think for him the best thing is to stay with us, to learn, be around the first-team everyday, try to learn from Antoine [Semenyo], from Jeremy [Doku], in terms of attitude, how to work hard.&#8221; <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Maresca added: &#8220;He is that kind of winger I love. Very aggressive one v one, always trying, making the right decision.&#8221; It&#8217;s safe to say we will see a lot more of McAidoo in the coming months; he&#8217;s too good to remain in the shadows at City any longer.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ryan McAidoo made his senior debut for City last season, and marked the occasion with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}