Pep Guardiola confirms Manchester City star Rodri will be out for the season

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Rodri ruled out for the rest of the season with ACL injury

Bad news for Manchester City fans as the club has now confirmed what everyone was dreading: Rodri will be out for the rest of the season.

Things didn’t look good when the Spaniard was substituted during last week’s game against Arsenal after colliding with fellow midfielder Thomas Partey during a corner and given that he hadn’t long come back from his previous injury, supporters were already fearing the worst.

Rodri has been a linchpin in the middle of the park for Man City ever since he joined back in 2019, going on to win the hallowed Treble and four Premier League title wins in a row, not to mention Euro 2024 – safe to say that even for all their quality, the team doesn’t tick over quite the same without him.

Breaking the news during his press conference ahead of City’s trip to Newcastle this weekend, when asked about the exact nature of the previously unconfirmed injury, manager Pep Guardiola simply shook his head and said: “Next season he will be here. This season is over [for him].

Speaking on Friday, 27 September, the Catalan coach explained, “He had surgery this morning, ACL and some meniscus” but sadly there looks to be no hope of his returning for the remainder of this campaign.

Pep went on to add: “Unfortunately, he got the worst. It is what it is. We are here to support him – good recovery, step by step and move forward.

This comes after the seasoned CDM suffered a fairly serious hamstring injury during the Euros final which already saw him sidelined for the start of the 24/25 season and while City do have the likes of Gundogan and Kovacic to share those duties, it doesn’t get much worse than a cruciate ligament tear.

Guardiola did insist that they have no other player quite like Rodri in their squad, no matter how healthily stocked, and that they will simply have to try and do their best “to find a way [to replace him]” with other talents in the team.

Even prior to the severity of the ligament injury being fully revealed, his national team and former clubs such as Villareal sent messages of support, with fans, players and everyone in football alike knowing how serious an ACL injury can be, especially for someone at this particular point in his career.

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As if player fitness and well-being weren’t already a pressing concern in recent times, it was only earlier this month that Rodri spoke about the ever-increasing number of games.

In short, the number 16 says “It’s too much” and whether people see it as a sport or a business, someone needs to start looking after the “main characters”.

Fair to say with the overall average number of injuries jumping up each year and with incidents like this now having put an end to his season, he might have a point…

You can watch Pep’s pre-match press conference ahead of the match against Newcastle this Saturday down below:

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Featured Images – pantkiewicz (via Flickr)/Manchester City Youtube (via screenshot)