No Rodri. No Kovacic. No control. City are in trouble.

If there was one thing I think Pep Guadriola will have admitted after his first season at City in 2017, it was that the Premier League is full of big bastards.

Yes, while the nimble and the slight have increasingly weaved their magic to great effect, in every single championship winning team, there have been athletes just has intent on disrupting opposition play as creating their own.

Roy Keane, Patrick Viera, Claude Makelele, Yaya Toure.

Rodri is surely one of the greatest players to ever play the holding midfield position, not just in the premier league, but anywhere in Europe.

Any team would miss him. But City miss him more than other teams would.

They don’t have another midfield player like him. That is failure. Failure from the top people at the club.

We have lauded the management at City, and rightly so. With six championship winning seasons from a possible seven, they have shown they are the best run club in the world.

But to only have one first-choice player in such a crucial position, you are asking for something like Rodri’s injury to disrupt the team in the way it has.

What’s interesting is that Rodri was bought, in 2020, as a replacement for another pivotal holding midfielder, in Fernandinho. He was the man underpinning Guardiola’s first two titles, knitting the play and cleaning up the counter attacks better than anyone else in the league.

Rodri’s signing was – one again – magnificent planning from City. The young student who would one day take over from the master.

And take over he did. Even before Fernandinho departed City at the age of 36, Rodri was undisputed first-choice. Fernandinho was always there though, if needed. He even (strangely) started the losing Champions League final in 2021.

Against Liverpool, City were completely overwhelmed.

Although the graphic here shows a 4-2-3-1, it was much more of a 4-3-3, with Akanji stepping into midfield to make the 3-2-5 shape most teams now build up with.

That left Bernardo Silva playing in the Rodri role. And it didn’t work.

In the first half, City has less possession than the opposition for the first time in 3 years, and created next to nothing, with one shot – off target.

Signings to support Rodri have been made. Most notably, Kalvin Phillips, the hero of England’s Euro 2020 charge was signed for £40m last summer but is now on loan at Ipswich – before that, West Ham.

You have to wonder how that transfer went ahead when it seemed obvious the minute he walked in the door, Guardiola was not keen on the former Leeds man.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, to me, this season for City feels a lot like Liverpool in 20/21 where key injuries to Van Dijk, Matip and Gomez left them so short at the back they needed to bring in desperate reinforcements from the Championship in January.

Blips happen. Mistakes happen. Failures happen.

But be of no doubt, City’s disappointing campaign so far is just that – a failure. A failure not just in their performances, but in their ability to plan and execute a transfer strategy. Something that has been their biggest strength following Guardiola’s first season in 2017.