2024-01-16 07:23:29
Ederson, Rúben Dias, Kevin De Bruyne or Erling Haaland are all players who are extremely important for City. They can decide matches, improve and refine the game, score goals, prevent conceding. And then there is Rodri, Mr. Indispensable.
“He is perhaps the best midfielder in his position in the world. When you lack, you have to have a solution. I won’t deny how important he is to us. When we don’t have him in the lineup, we have to protect the ball more and value it,” Guardiola said during the fall, adding that if Rodri is missing, tactics need to be changed, for example to thicken the center more with wingers.
The numbers speak clearly. Manchester City have lost four matches in the current season (defeat on penalties once morest Arsenal in the Community Shield as a draw) and Rodri was missing in all of them, the last time he knew the competitive bitterness of the defeat at the beginning of February 2023 once morest Tottenham.
50 – Rodri has now gone 50 games unbeaten across all club competitions for Manchester City (W39 D11), since featuring in a 1-0 loss to Tottenham in February last year. Foundation. pic.twitter.com/sDWpbOLJb4
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 13, 2024
His absence was most noticeable at the turn of September and October, when Pep Guardiola’s men lost in the league three times in a row. The 27-year-old Spaniard was then piqued for his incomprehensible short-circuit in the match with Nottingham Forest, when he knocked Morgan Gibbs-Whit to the ground during a push. He received a red card, his first in his career, and just a three-match suspension.
“At half-time I told the players to be careful and control themselves, but Rodri mightn’t do that. I am angry with him, even though he apologized to everyone following the game. He has to control himself and his emotions,” Guardiola joked at the time.
Rodri then stood due to yellow cards in December, when the defending champions failed to manage the match at Aston Villa. Manchester has not lost more duels in the current season.
You would say that Guardiola must have a plan to do without Rodri. He certainly has it, but it is difficult to implement it in competitive duels. Since the 2019/2020 season, when the Spaniard moved to England from Atlético Madrid, Manchester City has played 172 matches in the domestic league. Rodri was not available due to card or health problems in only 17 cases.
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#Indispensable #heart #Citys #midfield #completed #respectable #milestone
