3 reasons why Rodri would be the perfect signing for Manchester City

#2 He’s been compared to Sergio Busquets

Rodri has been compared to the great Sergio Busquets - and has the stats to back the comparison up

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.