S Poddar
Newcastle United showed to Manchester City what is missing for the champions at St. James’ Park after a 1-1 draw, with the key takeaway being how difficult things get for the team without its leader midfielder, Rodri.
The pitches seemed to change dimensions in the course of the game at times and were really too spacious in places where Rodri’s presence often would have made itself felt in other situations. His absence was palpable, and it seemed that every pass in the attacking third might have been intercepted if he was on the field.
When the game descended into chaotic exchanges reminiscent of football’s more tumultuous eras it was then clear that without Rodri, Newcastle exploited gaps that ordinarily would have been closed off. Gordon’s goal came from a well-timed pass by Joelinton as City was caught off guard slipping the ball past Ederson-which is not the kind of goal City usually allows to be conceded.
That was part of that defensive melee, leaving Gordon onside and letting that angle express the vulnerability in front of Manuel Akanji. Rodri does normally patrol that area where Kyle Walker left his marker, doing more than just break up plays, often calming opposition attacks before they actually materialize.
While a draw against Newcastle is not the end of the world for City, it does make the result look slightly more palatable to some of their competitors. It adds to a strange stat; since October 2022, the last time they won a league match without Rodri, their only league win thereafter has been against Luton Town.
Indeed, for the past 18 months, teams have generally been able to get something from games against City either by playing to Rodri’s absence or – amazingly, remarkably even – by virtue of having Scott McTominay on their books. It may run a bit too wild to say that City are too dependent on one player, especially when Pep Guardiola talks so often about unit cohesion, but Rodri’s contribution to the team in terms of passing and positioning has really underpinned that cohesion.
Rodri is undoubtedly a player who cannot be replaced overnight. According to his coach, Guardiola, other players more often mentioned among Ballon d’Or award winners precisely have an air that is difficult to replace. So City has been playing on replacing some kind of balance in Rodri’s absence.
This, in light of recent developments, makes the decision to bring Ilkay Gündogan back from Barcelona at the end of the transfer window look like a stroke of forward vision, even if Gündogan fails to get sharp from here. Maybe he needs a bit of time to adjust again or is just going through the normal ravages of age, now at 33. City’s task to replace Rodri would already be a massive ask to achieve in his absence, and especially so with Kalvin Phillips still out on loan at Ipswich.
Rodri and Gündogan were the central midfield trio, with the former playing the more advanced role. Meanwhile, Mateo Kovacic attempted to be similar to Rodri in his base position; Rico Lewis balanced the midfield on the right side. Each of the three achieved impressive pass completion rates above 90% though none matched Rodri’s 93.4% completion from the season.
But it is more than the statistics for Rodri. He has the creepy ability to almost dictate the course of the game simply by where he positions himself on the field, in ways that often cannot be quantified. For a brief period following Newcastle’s equalizer, City looked a tad rattled, almost about to be blown over by Newcastle’s pressure. This brought in Phil Foden, and Gündogan, who reduced it to a mess, though still raised a question about how this chaos can happen when Rodri is absent as in Mary Poppins times.
At base, football is a game by its very nature chaotic, and Guardiola’s ambition has always been to impose order upon that chaos. Few have done it quite as well as Rodri, and with him out, the tests for City are far from over.
