Despite winning the Premier League, FA Cup, and League Cup in 2018/19 with an incredibly strong and deep squad, it doesn’t look like Manchester City are considering “doing a Tottenham” and deciding against strengthening their ranks in the summer transfer window.
There are a number of players that Pep Guardiola’s side have been linked with – the likes of Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes for instance – but one link that simply won’t go away is centred around Atletico Madrid midfielder Rodri.
The Spanish international is just 22 and has only just finished his first season at the Wanda Metropolitano after returning there last summer from Villareal, but he’s made a big impact and City are reportedly more than willing to match his €70m release clause.
Here are 3 reasons why Rodri would be the perfect signing for Manchester City.
#1 Fernandinho isn’t getting any younger
Since signing for Manchester City in the summer of 2013, Fernandinho has proven to be a fantastic servant at the club, and under the tutelage of Pep Guardiola, he’s become a key player for the side, acting largely as City’s defensive shield in their midfield, allowing the more attacking players like Kevin de Bruyne and Bernardo Silva to work their magic further up the pitch.
It’s a role that has always been a key to the playing style of Guardiola’s teams – at Barcelona, Sergio Busquets played the role while the Spanish boss converted Phillip Lahm to be able to cover the spot at Bayern Munich. Unfortunately, despite appearing in 29 of City’s Premier League games this season, the Brazilian isn’t getting any younger at 34 years old and how much longer he can last is a major question mark.
Guardiola has attempted to use Ilkay Gundogan in the role as a potential replacement or understudy, but the German is clearly more of a natural attacker and doesn’t really suit the position, and without Fernandinho, City’s ultra-attacking ways could end up exposing their defence more than they would like.
Rodri, on the other hand, would practically be a ready-made replacement for the Brazilian, and his young age – just 22 – makes him the ideal candidate for the spot as he could probably spend at least one season as Fernandinho’s understudy before taking over the spot fully in 2020/21.
#2 He’s been compared to Sergio Busquets
While both Phillip Lahm at Bayern and Fernandinho at City have played the role of the defensive midfielder excellently for Guardiola, there aren’t many players who epitomise the style of play that the Spanish manager loves quite so much as Sergio Busquets.
The passing master was brought through to Barcelona’s first team by Guardiola back in 2008/09, and since then he’s appeared over 500 times for the club, remaining a lynchpin at the Nou Camp to this day.
The fact then that Rodri has been compared to Sergio Busquets on numerous occasions has probably piqued Guardiola’s interest in the Atletico Madrid man even more.
Spain’s former U21 coach Albert Celades, for instance, recently compared the two – stating “He’s a high-level player with a lot of quality. His physical condition is good for the defensive phase and individual duels, and he’s also very good tactically, but more than anything, what stands out the most to me is that he’s a long player who can play with both feet, perfect for playing the ball out of high-pressure areas...just like Busquets, he has the intuition to position himself well, to know where the play is going so that he can win the ball.”
Even the stats produced by the two players are similar; last season Busquets ended with a pass success rate of 89.7% in La Liga, while Rodri boasted an even higher percentage of 91.1%. And Rodri also produced more key passes than Busquets (17 to 15) although he was slightly behind the Barca man in overall passing numbers (1927 completed to Busquets’ 2394).
If anyone could fill the Busquets role at the Etihad – not that Fernandinho has done a bad job by any means – it sounds like Rodri could be the man.
#3 He wouldn’t break the bank
Current reports suggest that if Manchester City want to prise Rodri away from Atletico Madrid, they’d probably have to part with a figure somewhere around €70m, assuming that figure is indeed the correct release clause for the player. That sounds like a lot of money, but in today’s world of football – where players are now regularly moving for over £100m – it’s practically a drop in the ocean.
So why is that such good news for a potential move to the Etihad? Well, it’s no secret that City’s financial movements are currently being heavily scrutinised, with UEFA currently investigating them over claims that the club breached Financial Fair Play rules by deliberately inflating the value of a sponsorship deal.
Refusing to spend a lot of money on new players obviously wouldn’t get City off the hook with UEFA, but it would perhaps send the right kind of message out to the rest of Europe’s clubs that City aren’t the “financial dopers” that critics make them out to be.
By signing a player like Rodri – who would essentially come at a cut-price and isn’t a bonafide superstar just yet – rather than someone more high-profile, Pep Guardiola would also gain some ammunition against critics who claim that he can’t succeed without a bottomless pit of cash behind him.
Essentially, City could be getting the best of both worlds in the form of the Atletico midfielder – they’d be picking a potential world-class player up without paying a huge fee for him, and placating the critics of their financial dealings in the same breath.