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Manchester City may have entered the season as the favorites to win a fifth consecutive Premier League title, but the calculation of their chances of extending their winning streak shifts significantly with Rodri expected to miss a large part of the season with a knee injury.
Rodri came off with the injury in the first half of Sunday’s 2-2 draw against Arsenal, leaving a big hole in City’s midfield. The Spain international has been the key player during the team’s recent dominance, averaging over 50 appearances per season since moving to England in 2019. City lost just 11 percent of the games he played in, leaving manager Pep Guardiola behind. with a tactical conundrum that is perhaps unlike any other he has faced in his eight years at the club.
Here’s a look at Guardiola’s options as he plans for a season without Rodri.
Mateo Kovacic
The most obvious answer to the question of who could step into City’s lineup now is Mateo Kovacic. He came on for Rodri against Arsenal and has already started most of the team’s games this season, while Guardiola was given extra rest after the European Championship. Kovacic has played alongside Ilkay Gundogan and Rico Lewis in City’s midfield this season, a plan that has worked well so far.
In his 69-minute appearance against Arsenal on Sunday, Kovacic had 92 touches and 86 passes – behind only defenders Ruben Dias, Kyle Walker and Manuel Akanji – with a passing accuracy of 95.3%, as well as a completion rate of 96.6% in attack . third. Those numbers are actually better than his impressive performances so far this season – he is averaging 73 touches per game, as well as a passing accuracy of 95.2 percent. He is in the top five in the Premier League for touches by a defensive midfielder, and is second only to Akanji in passing accuracy among players who have played more than 300 minutes.
While goals aren’t necessarily a crucial part of his game, he has already scored one this season and has created seven chances in the league so far.
Someone else
With or without Rodri’s injury, Kovacic is likely to play significant minutes for City this season as the team is primed for another season of 50-plus games between domestic competition, an expanded UEFA Champions League roster and an even bigger Club World Cup in the competition. summer. That poses a different question for Guardiola, who prefers to rotate as much as possible to avoid congestion in the match. Who could play the minutes originally earmarked for Kovacic?
Gundogan and Lewis are natural contenders if Guardiola chooses to change the cadence of his rotation patterns in Rodri’s absence, but he may have to rely on others as the season progresses. John Stones could benefit from the newly available playing time, despite making his only start of the season as a centre-back. The 30-year-old has made two appearances as a defensive midfielder, including a 12-minute cameo against Arsenal in which he scored the equalizer, but how much Guardiola plans to call on him is a big question mark. Someone like Matheus Nunes could also be in the mix, but he has only played 20 minutes in the league so far this season.
Is Rodri replaceable?
The coming months will be an exercise for Guardiola in answering an unenviable question: how do you replace the irreplaceable? Guardiola’s City team is like a collection of the best of the best in every position, and yet Rodri was the undisputed leader of that pack. Rare were the days when they lost with him in the lineup, and even rarer were the days when he was unavailable. He has made 260 appearances for the team in five years, a constant during an era of success that felt inevitable for City.
However, Rodri is more than a tough defensive midfielder, making him even more difficult to replace. His ability to get involved in attack is unmatched by players in his position and offers a little bit of everything in a way that suits Guardiola’s playing style perfectly. It may not be possible to replace Rodri specifically as he is a unique player. Instead, perhaps Guardiola should maximize the talents of his players rather than asking them to emulate Rodri, which could force him to get creative. The good news for him is that he has a decent track record in this category. City teams survived injuries to Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland last season. However, replicating the same without Rodri could be a completely different story.