How Pep Guardiola will cope without Manchester City’s winning machine Rodri

Spain had just come from behind to beat Georgia 4-1 to set up a mouthwatering quarter-final clash against Germany at Euro 2024 and in the bowels of the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, there was one player for whom Luis de la Fuente reserved special mention.

“And then we have Rodri,” the Spain coach mused. “A perfect computer who makes everyone else play. He is the axis of everything we do. He managed all the emotions and all the moments perfectly, which is a big help for everyone.”

It was Rodri who had plundered Spain’s equaliser – a reminder that the midfield conductor also has a habit of chipping in with big goals – and before then had literally put his foot on the ball, stopped the play and told his team-mates to calm down and keep their heads. Spain followed his cue and Georgia were duly dismantled.

Pep Guardiola, of course, knows better than anyone what De la Fuente was getting at with his colourful description of Rodri’s influence and importance.

Erling Haaland may score bags full of goals and attract most of the headlines but Rodri is the brains of Manchester City’s team and now Guardiola must find a new algorithm that ensures the loss of arguably his most indispensable player does not severely disrupt the programming of this finely tuned machine.

Rodri is not certain to play again this season after suffering serious damage to his right knee during Sunday’s tempestuous 2-2 draw with Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium and, from previously wondering how he could cope for a game or two without the Spaniard, Guardiola must now contemplate a future without him for possibly the next eight months.

There is, of course, a certain irony that, only days after suggesting leading players were considering strike action amid concerns about the impact of the increasingly punishing schedule, Rodri should succumb to a potential season-ending injury.

This injury was not down to the congested calendar, though, rather simply bad luck but it will test Guardiola and City in new ways. Guardiola has often found solutions to problems that might confound others and City fans will trust in their manager to again come up with a plan that mitigates the loss of a man who, little over a month from now, could be collecting the Ballon d’Or.

Back in the 2018-19 campaign, the damaging loss of Fernandinho for most of the final three months of a nip-and-tuck title race saw Ilkay Gundogan parachuted into the specialist midfield holding role. It was a job the German carried out with aplomb, helping City to win their final 14 league games as Liverpool were pipped to the title by a point on the final day.

Perhaps Guardiola will ask Gundogan to reprise that role again but, in truth, the City manager is not short of options and, Fernandinho aside, has plenty of experience of being without his big players. Last season alone, Kevin De Bruyne was missing for five months and Haaland for two.

City are also adept and well practised in so many systems that there is likely to be little need for Guardiola to devise a new formation to compensate for Rodri’s absence. It was in the middle of the Treble winning campaign of 2022-23 that Guardiola switched to a 3-2-4-1, with John Stones stepping into midfield from centre-back to form a double pivot with Rodri.

Could Stones now share that task with Gundogan, Mateo Kovacic, Rico Lewis or even Bernardo Silva, who also has experience of playing in a holding midfield role?

The challenge will be whether the manager feels anyone is capable of playing the No 6 role on their own. Gundogan did it previously but he is five years older now but then perhaps he still could if the midfield configuration around him was robust enough and Guardiola maybe sacrificed one of his flying wingers in favour of a player such as Phil Foden operating on one of the flanks.

Equally, for all the desire for defensive solidity, Guardiola will be wary about sacrificing too much creativity so certain pairings may, in the main, be discouraged.

There is enough versatility in City’s squad to think that if anyone can cope it is them but no one should downplay the impact of Rodri on that team – or how his absence will encourage rivals.

Four of City’s five defeats last season came without him and Guardiola’s version of giving his Mr Indispensable a “rest” constituted sitting out one league game (a 5-1 win over Luton Town) either side of a two-legged Champions League tie against Real Madrid.

City’s points per game average across all competitions with Rodri is 2.36. Without him, it falls to 2.04. He affects City in almost every area of the pitch: a match-winning metronome.

Since his debut for City in August 2019, only Declan Rice has won possession more often and nobody has won the ball back more often in the middle third of the pitch. Just seven players over that period have made more tackles.

On the ball, he has completed almost 2,000 more passes than any other player since arriving in England, notably completing more in the final third than anyone else. Last season, he had the most involvements of any Premier League player in open-play sequences that ended with a shot or chance created.

And then there is his own goal output. It was Rodri’s superb finish that provided the only goal in City’s Champions League final victory over Inter Milan last year and secured the Treble with it and last season he found the net nine times for the champions, including a winner against Sheffield United and two important goals against Chelsea.

His absence does not mean the end of City’s bid for a record fifth successive Premier League title and second Champions League crown – but it does make the challenge all the harder.