Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has delivered a concerning update on the fitness of star midfielder Rodri ahead of the new season.
The 29-year-old Ballon d’Or winner missed the majority of the 2024-25 campaign after sustaining an anterior cruciate ligament injury in a Premier League draw with Arsenal back in September last year.
Rodri was required to undergo surgery and spent eight months on the sidelines before making his long-awaited comeback as a late substitute in Man City’s penultimate Premier League fixture of the season against Bournemouth on May 20.
The Spain international made a further two substitute appearances in Man City’s opening two FIFA Club World Cup group-stage games against Wydad AC and Al-Ain earlier this summer, before he was handed his first competitive start in over nine months and completed 66 minutes in a 5-2 victory for the Citizens over Juventus.
Rodri’s most recent outing for Man City came as a second-half substitute in a last-16 clash with Al-Hilal, but he had to come off 10 minutes into extra time before the Citizens fell to a 4-3 defeat.
Manchester City's Pep Guardiola in June 2025
Rodri “had a big injury” against Al-Hilal, says Guardiola
Just over a month on from Guardiola revealing after that match that Rodri may have sustained a fresh injury during his brief outing against Al-Hilal, the Catalan coach has now stated that his star lynchpin sustained a “big injury” and will need time to return to full fitness.
Rodri has subsequently been left out of Man City’s 22-man squad that travelled to Sicily on Friday evening ahead of Saturday’s pre-season friendly against sister club Palermo.
City’s No.16 is one of four players, along with Phil Foden, Josko Gvardiol and Claudio Echeverri who has been omitted from the squad as they are not deemed fully fit, while Marcus Bettinelli is also absent as he is understood to be carrying an injury.
As quoted by the Manchester Evening News, Guardiola said: "Rodri is getting better but he had a big injury in the last game against Al-Hilal. He has trained better in the last few days, hopefully after the international break is when he will be really fit.
"Hopefully in these games he can play some minutes, but what is important is he doesn't have pain because we don't want this Rodri coming back injured.
"We try desperately to avoid that. He has been training the last two sessions with us and that's good."
Guardiola has also said that Foden is carrying a knock, but he has not ruled the attacker out of City’s opening Premier League game of the new season away against Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 16.
Manchester City's Rodri on June 18, 2025
How many Man City games could Rodri miss?
Rodri’s injury setback comes as a concern for a Man City side who struggled to cope without the midfielder during a turbulent 2024-25 season in which they failed to win a single major trophy, finishing third in the Premier League and 13 points behind champions Liverpool.
However, Guardiola remains hopeful that Rodri can feature in some capacity in their top-flight opener at Wolves, before City welcome Tottenham Hotspur to the Etihad Stadium on August 23 and conclude the month with a trip to Brighton & Hove Albion.
Man City do not expect to see the best version of Rodri in the opening month of the new season, though, and Guardiola will look to manage his minutes in the early stages up until the first international break at the beginning of September.
The Citizens will hope to have Rodri fit and firing in time for the start of their League Phase campaign in the Champions League, as well as challenging Premier League contests against rivals Manchester United and Arsenal next month.
Rodri is not the only midfielder battling fitness issues, as Mateo Kovacic continues to recover from Achilles surgery that took place earlier this summer; the Croatian is not expected to return until mid-September at the earliest.
Guardiola still has a number of other midfield options at his disposal, with summer signing Tijjani Reijnders set to battle with new captain Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan and Nico Gonzalez for starts in the middle of the pitch.
Nico O’Reilly and Matheus Nunes are two more midfield options, though they are more likely to continue as makeshift full-backs.
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