The sight of Rodri leaving the Etihad Stadium pitch after sustaining a serious knee injury against Arsenal saw a hush descend amongst the thousands present.
The crowd will have immediately understood the gravitas of the situation, and that Man City were going to lose their best player for an indeterminate length of time.
Since then, it’s become clear that the Spaniard will be out for some months, and perhaps even the rest of the 2023/24 season.
?? BREAKING: Rodri has suffered a ligament injury to his right knee.
“The midfielder travelled to Spain to seek a specialist consultation”.
“Assessment remains ongoing to ascertain on the full extent of the injury and expected prognosis to return”.
Get well soon, Rodri! ?? pic.twitter.com/VMuVV89X9P
— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) September 25, 2024
There’s a narrative that often appears to do the rounds concerning how much worse off City are when Rodri isn’t playing, but Stan Collymore isn’t buying it.
“Rodri isn’t irreplaceable. John Stones made a difference at the weekend and can play in midfield, whilst Matheus Nunes has, apparently, been the one told to step up,” he said to CaughtOffside for his exclusive column.
“There’s this narrative that if Rodri plays City win or if Rodri doesn’t play, City lose. That’s not strictly true, of course, because Man City still win a hefty amount of games without him.”
Collymore says Rodri’s injury will level the playing field
Although the chasing pack will believe that they’ll now have the perfect opportunity to haul the serial title winners in, that’s completely dismissing City’s own determination to hang on to their crown.
“There’s no doubt that Rodri’s injury is going to level the playing field somewhat, but I think that Pep will rightly will be shouting from the rooftops of the dressing room today; ‘we’re the champions, we’ve won four out of the last five titles, we don’t feel sorry for ourselves,’” Collymore added.
If nothing else, Rodri’s absence adds to the allure of the title race which seems to be getting earlier and earlier each season.
It shouldn’t really matter if a team loses a game or two at this early stage, but such is the consistency of the very top teams, that a gap opening up even now can often prove fatal to title chances.
