Why Manchester City still can't fix its Rodri problem

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DATE_FORMAT_LC5 1220

Manchester City may have picked up an impressive win over Chelsea, but they still have one glaring issue this season: Rodri, or moreover, his absence.

Never has this been as obvious as it was in City’s 4-2 loss to PSG, which came just before the Chelsea victory. As good a manager as Pep Guardiola is, he has yet to figure out how to solve this problem.

What went wrong against PSG

To understand just how the absence of Rodri has impacted City, let’s first break down their loss to PSG.

The first thing that went wrong is that City failed to bring the ball up the field mostly because PSG applied very heavy pressure and quite high up the pitch. Whatever City tried, they ended up running into one or multiple players that essentially cut off their build-up play completely. They broke through a couple of times but mostly failed to get the ball forward.

Another thing that didn't go well was the possession game. City lost it easily, with PSG dominating possession and pushing up rather easily. They entered the final third of the field three times as much as City managed but failed to score mostly thanks to some compact defending from City.

After the first half, Guardiola made adjustments. He replaced a few players and pushed the team even more forward, risking a lot more but crowding the midfield. It worked and they scored two quick goals to go up 2-0.

The problem with that is that they no longer had the compact block defence that worked so well in the opening half. That was now gone, allowing PSG a lot of space, especially on the counter-attack.

Soon after going up 2-0, the English side started to cave under the massive pressure from the PSG wingbacks. PSG took control of possession, controlling it at about 60% for the rest of the game. They created lots of chances, shooting 18 times at the goal and scoring a total of four goals to completely turn around the match.

That’s why the block defence was employed in the first half. It was the only successful counter City had for the way PSG likes to play. Once Guardiola removed that, everything completely fell apart.

Why does this keep happening?

The simple answer is because they can't fix it. When City play their compact block defence, they don’t really create much up front. If they opt to play aggressively and attack more, then they leave the defence quite isolated and they concede lots of goals.

The great equaliser for all of this was Rodri. Since he went down with injury, the whole system fell apart because they don’t have a player that can connect the two playstyles into one fluid system.

Players like Mateo Kovačić and Bernardo Silva are not the right profile to fill the Rodri gap and they don’t have anybody that can step up either. It is what it is and these problems will keep happening.

They will likely dominate weaker opponents but struggle with better opponents who can exploit it better. It’s as simple as that. It’s not a manager issue, it’s a roster issue and it can’t be fixed.

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UCL

Манчестер СитиКлуб Брюгге 29/01/2025 21:00

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