Barcelona Increases Bid for Rodri Amid City’s Enzo Interest

Barcelona have made their move. Again. A third bid has gone in for Rodri, and this one feels different.

The Catalan club have now pushed their fixed offer up to 70 million euros for the Spain midfielder, having seen their first two attempts knocked back by Manchester City. Talks began at around 45 million euros, crept towards 65 million, and now sit at a figure that suggests this is getting close to the decisive stage.

Inside Camp Nou, optimism is no longer whispered. There is a growing belief that an agreement could be sealed this weekend. Across in Manchester, there is a similar sense that the saga is heading towards a resolution, and that resolution increasingly looks like a sale.

Letting Rodri go would not just reshape City's midfield. It would also ease the pressure of Financial Fair Play and open the door to sign a high‑end replacement. That is where Enzo comes in.

Enzo Fernández remains the leading candidate to fill the gap at the Etihad. Chelsea had set a deadline, a line in the sand over his future, but the expiry of that date has not killed the story. It has only changed the dynamics.

New Manchester City manager Enzo Maresca, who knows Enzo well from their time together at Chelsea, drew a clear line on Friday. City, he made plain, will not be dragged into Chelsea's timing games. They will not dance to someone else's deadline.

Chelsea, for their part, are just as firm. The message from Stamford Bridge is blunt: they control the future of a player under contract until 2032. No cut‑price exits. No easy escape routes.

So City wait. The hierarchy, as reported by Fabrizio Romano, have stayed in constant contact with Enzo's agents in recent days, keeping the flame alive while the Rodri situation plays out. The interest has not cooled; the strategy has simply become more cautious.

The picture is the same in broad strokes: City want Enzo. The detail, though, has shifted. On Friday, Chelsea had effectively cracked the door open, signalling a willingness to let the Argentine leave under strict, almost release‑clause‑style conditions. That door is no longer ajar in the same way.

Now it comes down to calculation and conviction. City must decide how far they are prepared to go, how much they are willing to pay to force open Stamford Bridge and turn Rodri’s exit into the trigger for Enzo’s arrival.