Liam Duckstein
Rodri will miss Manchester City‘s Premier League trip to Everton on Saturday after picking up a hamstring problem, and manager Pep Guardiola said he does not know when the midfielder will be back.The 29-year-old felt the issue after limping off just 22 minutes into City’s victory at Brentford before the international break. He described the problem as a hamstring concern.
“I felt a little bit in the hamstring,” Rodri said after that Brentford match.
Rodri, the winner of the 2024 men’s Ballon d’Or, missed most of last season after suffering a serious knee injury one month into the campaign. He returned late in the previous season — in the penultimate game against Bournemouth — and also featured at the Club World Cup, but suffered a setback in August, Guardiola revealed at the time.
He missed City’s opening match of this season against Wolves and, while he has played seven times in all competitions this term, the club have “tried to be gentle” with him. So far this season Rodri has completed the full 90 minutes on just two occasions.
Guardiola also confirmed selection updates: Mateo Kovacic is available after not featuring yet this term, while Omar Marmoush and Rayan Ait-Nouri are back in training and “are close to a comeback”.
Guardiola has been at City since 2016. Under his tenure the club have won six Premier League titles, the Champions League and two FA Cups. He is also the English top flight’s longest-serving manager, while Everton boss David Moyes has overseen more than 700 Premier League matches.
City head into the fixture on a seven-game unbeaten run in all competitions and are determined to respond to a disappointing 2023-24 campaign that ended without a major trophy for the first time in eight years.
“I still have the feeling that I have the energy to help the players make a better season than last season,” Guardiola said. “This is my target.
I never sit here in November saying we’re going to win this or this. I don’t know what is going to happen against Everton, but before the international break we were far away from the top of the league and now we are closer.
We want to arrive in competitions being close. That is the target I have and I see things that we are doing much better than last season, and every game we are better and better.
That gives me the energy that it is not job done, it is unfinished business and that is why I am here.”
For now the timeline on Rodri‘s comeback remains unclear. Guardiola and his medical team will monitor the midfielder and make decisions with an eye on workload management and long-term fitness.