The most successful Premier League team of the season, still last season's champions Manchester City, led Liverpool by nine points after 24 rounds of matches. Klopp, who has just led the team to Leicester City, also admitted that his team's victory will not make Manchester City nervous.
The reason why Manchester City has such an excellent record is that midfielder Rodri has played a great role. This season, he has played 27 games in all competitions for Manchester City and made 26 starts, including 20 Premier League starts, 3 goals and 1 assist, and can contribute 2.25 steals, 0.60 interceptions and 1.10 clearances per game, and deliver 1673 passes, with a success rate of 92%. In the Premier League regained the ball, Rodri is 3rd with 142 attempts, behind West Ham United's Rice and Wolves' Neves. In The 21st round of the Premier League, City's 2-1 away win over Arsenal saw Rodri complete a second-reading deadlock that left the Gunners to swallow a bitter defeat.
In today's Manchester City squad, Rodri, although low-key, is already an indispensable person in the team. England football star Ferdinand has praised his performance, in the eyes of the former Manchester United centre-back, Rodri is the leader of the team, he wins the ball, controls the ball, provides a barrier for the back line, and likes to communicate with teammates and help, whether the ball is under the feet or running without the ball is reassuring.
In the world football six big back players rated by the whoscored website a few days ago, Rodri is famous at the top of the list, his value has reached 70 million euros, although the Spanish national team has not completely replaced Busquets, but it is only a matter of time, after all, he is only 25 years old, but the playing style in the back position is quite mature, and the comprehensive technology is impressive.
In fact, after joining Manchester City in the summer of 2019 for 62.5 million euros, Rodri still experienced a short run-in period, and the fierce rhythm of the Premier League and the rapid offensive and defensive transitions made it difficult for Rodri, who had previously played in La Liga, to adapt for a while. But Guardiola gave him enough trust and enough opportunities to play, even at the expense of putting Fernandinho on the bench, so that the latter had to go to the center-back position to look for opportunities. In his debut season in the Premier League, Rodri played in 54 games and scored 4 goals and 2 assists, including 3 goals and 2 assists in 35 Premier League games. When necessary, he even pulled back to play centre-back, which allowed him to further adapt to the high-intensity confrontation in the Premier League.
Guardiola, who also came out of the back, clearly has more to say about his performance, and in his opinion, Rodri is already one of the best back players in world football, "He has been perfectly integrated into the Premier League, as was last season." Of course, Guardiola also pointed out Rodri's shortcomings, in the final stages of last season, Rodri's state was seriously declining, and Manchester City eventually lost, losing 1-0 to Chelsea in the Champions League final.
So far this season, Rodri has played very consistently, and his only drawback is that he does not have a bench of comparable strength, which has become a problem that City must solve this summer. And they have another problem, that is, Rodri's contract extension, the Spanish back's contract expires in the summer of 2024, when he was only 28 years old, in the best of his career as a professional player.
Movingly, in the case that Manchester City has not yet opened the renewal negotiations, Rodri has taken the initiative to express his hope to extend the contract with Manchester City, and in an interview a few days ago, Spain said that his future is in Manchester City, and everything here is wonderful. For manager Guardiola, Rodri did not hesitate to say, "If you want to be the top player, you need outside guidance, and his help to me is huge." "An ambitious team, a manager with endless personal charisma, a team that works together to improve together, how can Rodri refuse all this?