2026-08-03 08:38:13

Antoine Semenyo has hailed new Manchester City boss Enzo Maresca’s style of play as “music to my ears”.

The forward was able to showcase his attacking threat as City lost on penalties to Inter Milan in a pre-season friendly in Hong Kong on Saturday (01.08.26) and feels that Maresca’s style of football will complement his game perfectly.

Semenyo said: “When he got appointed, that was the first thing I thought about because when you’ve played Chelsea previously when he was there, his wide men were always high and quite free.

“So that was one of the things that excited me the most when he got appointed and it’s exciting for me as a winger. I get to have one-v-one situations most of the game and I am looking forward to it.

“I have had individual meetings with him on how he wants to set up, how he wants to play his wide men and just overall as a team.

“I think his ideas are great, quite similar to Pep (Guardiola), but if you watched the [Inter] game, you would have seen a couple of his ideas play out and it was good. Enzo is just [stay] out wide and when you get the ball, just create opportunities. So it is music to my ears.”

Semenyo joined City in a £65 million move from Bournemouth in January and revealed that he was taken in by former manager Guardiola’s promise to make him “a better player”.

He said: “I think for me, I just wanted the next step to be the big one and Manchester City was the option. Pep spoke to me beforehand and he said, ‘Look, when you come, I am going to make you a better player.’

“You want to get better, you want to improve every season and he definitely helped me with that in the first five months, but obviously sad for him to leave.”

Meanwhile, Semenyo is a devout Christian and explained that he places faith before football.

The Ghana international said: “I wouldn’t be here without him [God], so there is always going to be faith and football after.

“I think God gave me the talent to be a footballer, he gave me all the skills, he gave me the mindset and the mentality, so I owe it to him to perform and maximise his words to the world.”

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