Enzo Maresca took his press conference last night which precedes the game against Man City later today, but of course the opening question was about the big scandal of the day – the rumours that Conor Gallagher had been told that he wasn’t going to be allowed to train with the first team when they return from the USA, and the club try to force him to accept a move away.
Maresca’s reaction to the claim Gallagher wasn’t going to be allowed to train was notable – raised eyebrows. But his words were measured:
“The only thing I can say is that he’s in contact with the club to find a solution, and the club offered him a new contract.”
He was questioned again, and dodged the question again, claiming he doesn’t know anything about the training rumours, and giving a hint of hope, saying “anything can happen” and he had seen a similar situation many times before.
Maresca plays dumb to avoid awkward questions
Ben Jacobs took a different approach, asking if it would be Maresca’s decision or the club’s decision if they were to tell Gallagher to train separately from the rest of the group. As you’d expect, he wasn’t giving up any ground here either. He simply pointed them to those upstairs at the club again and said they were “in contact” with Gallagher to “find a solution.”
In quite well trained terms, he then managed to deflect any further questions by pointing out that he doesn’t like to be contacted too much around games, as he wants to focus purely on preparation. That clever little trick was presumably cooked up by the press officer before the game, and will cover Maresca from having to talk about these sort of incidents for the rest of the tour.
You can see him speaking in the clip embedded here:
