Man City’s marathon man Rodri is in danger of burnout – and Pep Guardiola knows it

Fatigue is starting to take its toll on Man City linchpin Rodri – Reuters/Juan Medina

The second half was eight minutes old, Manchester City’s dramatic turnaround against Real Madrid still a little while from forming, when Phil Foden fired a pass into Rodri from the touchline. Uncharacteristically, City’s midfield metronome could not adjust his feet quickly enough and the ball cannoned off him and suddenly Real were away again.

Rodri shot Foden a weary look, as if to say, ‘Do I really have to give chase again?’. To City’s relief, Jude Bellingham could not punish the turnover, the England midfielder firing wide of the far post.

By the end of a wild night at the Bernabeu, City had a 3-3 draw to take back with them to Manchester for the second leg of another epic Champions League quarter-final at the Etihad Stadium next Wednesday and Rodri’s remarkable unbeaten streak with City had been extended to an eye-watering 66 games.

Indeed, you have to go back 429 days to Feb 5, 2023 to find the last time Rodri lost in a City shirt: a 1-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.

The last time Rodri lost in a City shirt was at Tottenham in 2023 – Reuters/Paul Childs

No wonder Pep Guardiola plays him all the time. No wonder City’s manager considers him indispensable. No wonder the Catalan is so reluctant to leave him out. But the time is coming when Guardiola will have no choice but to rest his most influential player because an unrelenting schedule is starting to take its toll.

There are only four games Rodri has missed this season that were not of Guardiola’s choosing – Wolves, Arsenal and Aston Villa away in the Premier League and Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup – and City lost them all, the Spaniard’s suspension for those fixtures costing his team dearly.

So Guardiola’s nervousness about resting Rodri is understandable but, realistically, there is no avoiding it now and it was interesting to hear the player disclose in the bowels of the Bernabeu that a plan was being devised to afford him the rare break he requires.

“I do need a rest,” he said. “Let’s see how we speak, how we live the situation. Sometimes it is what it is. I need to adjust. It [a rest] is something we are planning, yes.”

That rest could come as early as this weekend when Luton Town visit the Etihad on Saturday afternoon. There is no chance of Rodri sitting out a game next week, with an FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea to navigate three days after the Real match and, with Brighton away to follow the Wembley game, Luton presents an opportunity for Guardiola.

Look at Rodri’s statistics against Real and in the 4-2 win at Crystal Palace last Saturday and it would be impossible to detect any dip. His pass accuracy in both games was above his season average of 92.2 per cent. He misplaced just seven passes at Palace and nine against Real on Tuesday night, when he made 28 progressive carries, way above his season average of 15.1, and twice as many tackles as he is averaging this term.

Rodri is beaten to the ball by Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos – Getty Images/Angel Martinez

And yet in the first half of both games he did not look quite himself, misplacing passes he would normally make in his sleep, fatigue from the sheer volume of games he has played setting in. The sight of him turning over the ball cheaply first to Toni Kroos and then Antonio Rudiger within the space of a minute late in that first period against Real was instructive. “Every one of us can do better, myself included,” Rodri said when weighing up City’s prospects in the second leg. “But we need to rest, to be honest.”

Real had not played for nine days and it showed in those opening 45 minutes when City trailed 2-1 before goals from Foden and Josko Gvardiol in quick succession in the second half turned the game on its head. “We showed our mentality to come back,” Rodri said. “The media has spoken about rest and it’s important. They were a bit fresher in the first half than us. It’s normal. But to come back with those goals sums up the mentality of the champions we are.”

Rodri has played a total of 4,015 minutes for club and country this season. He has completed 90 minutes in 34 of the 47 games he has played for City and Spain and even when he is substituted it tends to be late in matches. He has come off before the 75th minute in only five of those games, and one was enforced because of a red card.

Guardiola conceded after Palace that Rodri was fatigued. “He was so tired, he was missing too much, our process was not good,” the City manager said. “He was in positions he shouldn’t be. In the second half he was more there and the result was better.”

The same assessment could have been made about the Real game. It is why Luton may need to be one of those rare games Rodri sits out.

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