Rodri redefines role of holding midfielder to become City’s fulcrum

odri was pretty young when he realised that he saw football in a different way to others. It wasn’t just his ability to pick a pass on the field, but the way he conceived the game off it. When he watched, he instinctively saw spaces and movement and only later realised that everyone else was simply following the ball. Football became not so much a pastime as a puzzle: a mechanism to be decrypted and understood.

Another way of looking at Rodri’s contribution is this: despite missing four games through suspension, he has the most passes and most touches of any player in the 2023-24 Premier League. On average this season, Rodri touches the ball 122 times per game. And every single one of those touches is a decision, an act of expression, a canvas. Unlike his teammates further up the pitch, he has full rein of the centre of the pitch, with all the angles and all the choices.

At the very highest level this dichotomy between “individual” and “collective” is largely a false one, as with the oft-cited opposition between “chaos” and “control”. We are often encouraged to think of individual expression and collective responsibility as diametric opposites, perhaps even opposing poles of a wildly boring intellectual culture war. In truth the individual and the collective are constantly in dialogue, complementing and reinforcing each other, pushing at each other’s boundaries.

Going into City’s final game, his 16 goal contributions – seven goals and nine assists – put him in the Premier League’s top 20, ahead of Kevin De Bruyne, ahead of Bernardo Silva, only a fraction behind Bruno Fernandes. His attacking metrics – shots, touches in the penalty area, passes into the final third, chances created – have risen year on year since his arrival.

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