Pep Guardiola has been the mastermind of many iterations of Manchester City. The great thinkers can adapt in most circumstances, often without compromising on success. Evolving tactical phases is like a game to Guardiola – and he almost always wins.
Evolution through the years has seen multiple shifts, including the revolutionary inverted full-back, the ball-playing goalkeeper, the false nine, the box midfield. The list goes on.
Each of these eras had a big-name hero. Some more than one. All admired for their technical role in shaping Guardiola’s title-winning machine. We’re talking the Fernandinho’s and Kevin De Bruyne’s of this world. The centrepieces.
Rodri was a particularly special case. He has a Ballon d’Or to prove it.
Rodri pictured with women’s winner Aitana Bonmati at the 2024 Ballon D’Or ceremony
At the time, few players embodied indispensability like him. He is so niche there was, perhaps still is, no direct replacement, and Man City have tended to suffer every time he’s not there, which, since September 2024, has been more often than not.
The midfielder has been limited to just four starts so far this season, completing 293 minutes – under 50 per cent of playing time available. Of course, that is the sensible approach given the ACL rupture he sustained only happened 13 months ago, and often injuries of that nature take well over a year to rehab fully.
Before that, Man City’s success and Rodri’s performance were intrinsically linked. Their well-documented collapse at the backend of last year can literally be traced – almost to the day – back to Rodri’s final appearance against Arsenal.
Results quite literally fell off a cliff thereafter. The underlying numbers tell the story best.
Since the start of 2021/22, City have lost 14 of their 48 league matches without Rodri compared with eight defeats in 111 games with him. With Rodri City average 2.4 points per game, without him 1.8. Easy maths.
Pep Guardiola has had to adapt his tactical set up to cope without Rodri
What the last year has shown, quite starkly, is the issues that can arise when a player so uniquely exceptional disappears. Guardiola has had to rip up the rule book because of it. The talismanic Rodri phase as we know it is over.
Perhaps that cycle, one with Rodri’s pass mastery at its core, was meeting its natural end anyway, in line with the tactical development of the game more broadly, but the Spainard’s absence has no doubt accelerated the step change. De Bruyne’s exit further underlines the shift.
And so what does Rodri, one of the world’s best central midfielders, offer a much less methodical Manchester City – when the possession strangulation method that once defined Guardiola sides has all but evaporated?
Rodri not yet back to his peak after lengthy injury lay-off
City are averaging 57.6 per cent of the ball and making 541 passes per 90 in the Premier League, the lowest figures by a Guardiola team since he became a top-flight manager. That includes his time at Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
The change marks quite a radical departure from the style that made Rodri so fundamental. Before, the game would simply pivot around him. He was the puppeteer.
But now City attack via fast breaks, using the dynamism of their wide players to switch defence to attack with less need for a middleman. They have scored the joint-most goals via that method (three) of any side in the league this season. They are countering on teams much in the same way opposition sides exploited them last term.
The club’s drive to recruit players adept in this more transitional style – Jeremy Doku, Savinho, Omar Marmoush – is further evidence of Guardiola’s move to embrace, as he calls it, “modern football”. Over the past three windows City have bought players with some of the best 1v1 ability in Europe. Doku’s impressive form is perhaps the best indicator of City’s more vertical design.
They sit deeper, too, compressing the midfield while offering the forward line and Erling Haaland the chance to explore space in behind. Haaland’s galactic goal rate suggests he is enjoying the freedom.
Coupled with this shift is of course Rodri’s lessening availability, a topic that irks Guardiola to speak about. After City conceded a late goal away at Monaco in the Champions League earlier this month, following Rodri’s withdrawal from the game, Pep was asked if his role can be covered by just one player.
Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, responds after being asked how his side copes when Rodri is not on the pitch.
“We cannot play with 12,” he replied. “I know Rodri is irreplaceable in many things, but he cannot play every three days. And when Nico Gonzalez came on, we concede less transitions. Rodri cannot sustain the rhythm for games and games, 90, 90.”
After the midfielder limped out of the Brentford game a fortnight ago, Guardiola reiterated a similar message: “We tried to take care of him, but it is what it is.”
Clearly there is still a place for Rodri’s control and near-perfect passing technique, but it’s no longer the only way. As the 27-year-old acknowledged himself in August: “I am not Messi, I’m not going to come back and make the team win every week.”
After losing to Brighton, midfielder Rodri dismissed the idea he can single-handedly fix Manchester City’s results, stressing the team’s struggles come down to collective performance.
Besides, Guardiola is slowly getting a better grip on this latest transformation. In 2025, City are averaging more points-per-game than any other side (2.04 – 53 in 26). They are the league’s top scorers this calendar year (55), and have picked up the joint-most wins (16, level with Liverpool).
City’s focus on being quicker and more direct without losing control certainly benefits from Rodri’s unrivalled ability to read the game and win second balls, but does not solely rest on it.
The acceptable of that fact, perhaps, is City’s biggest change of all.
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