One of Pep Guardiola’s most important decisions ahead of next season is choosing Manchester City’s next captain.
Kyle Walker is set to leave Manchester City and since the 2023/2024 season, he has captained City and only when he left to join AC Milan on loan did Kevin De Bruyne become the Sky Blues’ skipper.
With De Bruyne having exited the Etihad Stadium as well, it will be interesting to see which player takes over from the Belgian and leads the next era of this Manchester City side.
City’s leadership group involves Ruben Dias, Rodri, and Bernardo Silva, who could all potentially take over from De Bruyne as the club’s brand-new captain.
Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images
Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images
Rodri should be Man City’s new captain
Speaking to Manchester City’s official website, Pep Guardiola referred to Rodri as a “true leader.”
However, Guardiola likened Dias to Vincent Kompany as a leadership figure as well.
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Out of all the possible candidates to take over the armband next season, Rodri stands out for several reasons.
Firstly, the Spanish international has made the most starts out of any outfield player at Manchester City before suffering an ACL injury last season — with 229 outings to his name in five seasons.
RODRI’S PLAYING TIME AT MAN CITY
SEASON STARTS
2019/2020 42
2020/2021 46
2021/2022 45
2022/2023 46
2023/2024 49
TOTAL 229
Someone like Dias, on the other hand is rather injury-prone while Bernardo could join Benfica in the summer.
Dias highlighted Rodri’s leadership qualities as well and barring Erling Haaland, it could be argued that no player leads by example more than the 28-year-old.
While the Portuguese defender does as well, his performances last season were not the best and the same can be said about Bernardo.
With Pep Guardiola comparing Rodri to Lionel Messi due to how important he is to this Manchester City side, he is expected to stay as an ever-present in the team for years to come and merits being their new captain.
The new way in which Pep Guardiola will decide Man City’s captain
Usually, the players tend to vote amongst themselves to decide the skipper of the team.
However, Pep Guardiola revealed that this time around, he will decide Manchester City’s next captain, which could be good news for Rodri as his manager holds him in very high regard.
Guardiola said via HaytersTV: “I have to reflect, I have to think about it, yeah.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, I don’t say that.”
“I’m thinking I’m going to do in the future, yeah, but I didn’t take the decision, you (referring to a journalist at the press conference] will know it, you are a smart journalist and you will know behind the scenes.”
Pep Guardiola concluded: “So, we will do it, we have time, so it’s not important at all. We have really, really good captains right now; really, really good ones.”