Enzo Fernandez arrives at Manchester City with the locker room already won over

Some signings make themselves felt before the player even debuts. Enzo Fernandez's move is one of those cases: his arrival at Manchester City generated so much excitement in the locker room that, according to the coach himself, several teammates were asking day after day whether the transfer was finally going to close.

The Argentine midfielder, a World Cup champion with the national team and a former Chelsea player, was the one Enzo Maresca had wanted most to strengthen his midfield. And when the transfer window finally delivered him, the Italian coach didn't hold back on praise when introducing him to the press.

I know Enzo pretty well, I know what he can bring to the team. He has a winning mentality, he knows how to win: World Cup, Club World Cup. And most importantly, he's a winnerEnzo Maresca

That praise wasn't picked at random. Maresca and Fernandez had already crossed paths at Chelsea, so the coach knows firsthand how the midfielder operates both on and off the field. That prior familiarity appears to have been decisive in pushing for the signing.

A transfer window that left the coach satisfied

Maresca made no attempt to hide his happiness with how City closed out the transfer window. Besides Fernandez, the club also added Iliman Ndiaye in the final days, and with those two additions the coach believes he now has the squad he needs to compete on every front.

I'm very, very happy. Very happy with the effort from the board, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Hugo Viana. In the last few days Iliman Ndiaye and Enzo Fernandez arrived, and now the squad is complete, it's finished, and now it's time to workEnzo Maresca

Maresca himself shared something curious about what was happening inside the locker room: the push to get the deal done wasn't just a decision made by the coaching staff, several players on the squad had also been pushing for it to happen.

"I can tell you that in the last few days, four or five players were asking whether he was coming or not, because they wanted him with us! It's very important that he's with us and we're 100 percent happy about that," the coach explained, making clear that the eagerness to bring in Fernandez wasn't just his own.

Now it's time to see how everything settles on the field. City has a demanding schedule ahead: this Saturday they play their third Premier League match against Coventry City, and after that comes their Champions League debut against Porto. Two early tests to start finding out whether Fernandez fits in as quickly as the club hopes.