Rodri was Man City's secret playmaker - that's what makes him truly irreplaceable

The Spanish midfielder has gone from being Pep Guardiola's defensive stalwart to the complete central midfielder. And along the way he's developed into a key cog in Man City's attacking machine.

Manchester City’s seemingly unstoppable ability to win league titles comes from their strength in depth. While Pep Guardiola’s squad can lay claim to some of the best players in the world, the manner in which they’ve dominated English football for the last four seasons is more or less down to their ability to avoid relying on any single player too much. Like the Premier League’s own version of Hydra, the great serpent monster from Greek and Roman mythology, whenever Man City lose a key player to injury, transfer or even retirement, they always seem to have one or two alternatives waiting in the ranks to take their place. Until now. 

Man City have shown a remarkable ability to replace key defenders, wingers and even world class players like Ilkay Gunodgan or Kevin de Bruyne, but there’s one player in Guardiola’s team that stands alone with no equal. That, of course, is Rodri, who picked up a horrible injury in his side’s 2-2 draw with Arsenal on Sunday and now looks likely to miss the rest of the season. And, undoubtedly to Guardiola’s great annoyance, there’s really no one in this Man City side that can do what Rodri has done for Man City since he joined the club in 2019.

Rodri’s pivot to playmaking 

After making the move to Man City from Atletico Madrid for €70 million, Rodri has gone from strength to strength under Guardiola’s tutelage and undoubtedly established himself as one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. When the Spaniard first made the move to England, Guardiola often spoke about his need to adapt to the Premier League and become a proper No.6.

After his first season in the English top-flight, the Man City manager notably said that Rodri “moved too much” around the pitch and had to be coached into not moving. That quickly changed. In his first season at the club Rodri ranked 82nd in the Premier League for tackles and interceptions, but then saw that number rise remarkably fast to 34th the following season, then to 31st and then 29th in the next two campaigns. By that point the Spaniard had made the position his own and became the linchpin of Guardiola’s tactics, as they strolled from one league title to the next. “Rodri is maybe the best, or in the top two or three best, holding midfielders in the world,” proclaimed Guardiola at the start of last season, to very little pushback from fans and critics alike.

And yet, that doesn’t tell the whole story of Rodri’s success at Man City. Yes, the Spaniard is one of the best holding midfielders in the world, but over the course of the last few seasons, he’s also seemingly taken it upon himself to take on more responsibilities in Guardiola’s team. And in many ways, Rodri is now one of Guardiola’s most important attacking threats and perhaps even their most reliable playmaker. 

There are a few ways to show Rodri’s creep towards the opposing box in recent seasons and one of the best ones is to simply plot where he touches the ball on the pitch. As we can see in the graph above, Rodri’s touches of the ball in Man City’s defensive third have more or less stayed the same since he made the move to England. But his touches in the attacking third have changed rather dramatically in recent seasons. Or, to be more specific, he more or less completely changed his style of play last season and started venturing into the attacking third far more often. So much so that we saw an incredible 69% increase in his touches in the final third between 22/23 and 23/24. 

So what was behind Rodri’s growing interest in getting into goal scoring positions for Man City? It’s hard to say definitively but when we consider that Guardiola lost two of his top 10 players for touches in the opposing box from the previous season in Riyah Mahrez and Ilkay Gundogan in the summer transfer window, before then losing De Bruyne to a long-term injury in August of that league campaign, it would certainly make sense if the Man City manager simply urged Rodri to step into the space left behind by those three players, but certainly Gundogan and De Bruyne in particular. 

Indeed, it’s the De Bruyne comparison that intrigues me the most. For all of the Belgium talent’s truly exceptional ability to pass the ball from one end of the pitch to the other, one of his most underrated attributes is his ability to gallop down the pitch and run by defenders. Not only is De Bruyne the perfect playmaker, but he’s also the perfect No.10 due to his physical ability to make late runs into the box and tussle with defenders to get on the ball. And with that in mind, it certainly made sense for Guardiola to turn to Rodri - a player of similar stature and technical ability - and task him with doing the exact same thing. Which perhaps explains why Rodri’s shots on target per 90 in the Premier League that season rose from 0.43 to 0.68 and finished the season as the club’s fourth top goalscorer of non-penalty goals. 

But there’s more to Rodri’s attacking progression than simply being a big lump in the box for Haaland to play off. The towering midfielder is, after all, Spanish and that means that he’s been blessed with a seemingly god-given right to pass with exceptional precession. And just as he marshalled Man City’s defence with clever passing as a defensive midfielder, he then made the step up last season to a more attacking role and dominated the final third with similar accuracy. In other words, he became Man City’s de-facto playmaker. 

Over the course of the Premier League season, only De Bruyne completed more assists than Rodri (a truly crazy stats considering he missed half the season), while the Spaniard finished top in Guardiola’s team for passes into the final third and, more notably, passes into the opposing box. And when it comes to key passes (i.e a pass that leads to a shot), only Phil Foden, Julian Alvarez, Bernardo Silva and the aforementioned Belgian assist machine bagged more. That may not seem all that impressive, but bear in mind that Rodri completed more key passes than Mateo Kovacic, Rico Lewis and Matheus Nunes combined. And as we can see in the graph above, while Rodri maintained his defensive duties with his signature consistency, there was clearly an added emphasis on being the man to thread the ball through tight-knit defences and into the path of Man City’s goal scorers. 

None of this is to suggest that Rodri is Man City’s best playmaker or that Guardiola’s team will stop scoring goals now that he’s injured, but the Spaniard has evolved into a true box-to-box midfielder for Man City and in no uncertain terms became the team’s secret playmaker. He protects the back line but increasingly sets the tone for how the English champions break down stubborn defences and find ways into the opposing box. Which, in turn, makes him far more important than an established central defender or in-form goalscorer, and potentially a player that Guardiola will struggle to replace this season. 

Will that be enough to knock Man City into a tailspin and allow the likes of Liverpool or Arsenal to beat them to the league title? Who knows. But if there was one player that Guardiola knew he couldn’t replace in his team, I’d wager that it was Rodri. And without the Spaniard calling the shots in the middle of the pitch this season, Man City will undoubtedly be a poorer side. In defence, undoubtedly, but also in attack.