Manchester City have been dealt a blow ahead of the new season after Rodri picked up another injury at the Club World Cup, and will be out until after the September international break. Pep Guardiola reveals that the club is doing everything possible to help the player recover.
The 29-year-old missed a vast majority of last season after tearing his ACL against Premier League rivals Arsenal, coinciding with a remarkable loss of form for Man City. The Saniard returned to action with an eight minute cameo in City’s penultimate Premier League match last season.
Rodri appeared in all four of City’s Club World Cup matches, starting just once, but suffered an injury setback as the Sky Blues were dumped out of the competition by Al Hilal in the round of 16.
Softfootball understands that the Spaniard has taken part in the last two sessions with Pep Guardiola’s team but was not included in the squad to travel to Palermo for a friendly this weekend and will not be ready to play 90 minutes against Wolves.
Pep Guardiola still has hope that the 29-year-old can feature against Wolves, Spurs and Brighton but does not expect to see anything like the best version of Rodri until after the international break. Until then, it is about protecting him rather than exposing him.
Speaking to the press ahead of their pre-season friendly with Palmero on Saturday as seen on Manchester City official website, Guardiola revealed he’s expecting to be out until September:
“Rodri’s getting better but he had a big injury in the last game against Al-Hilal and for the last five or six weeks.
“He’s training right now and in the last two or three days is better. Hopefully maybe the international break is when he will be really really fit.
“Hopefully, in the games before then he can play some minutes. But the important thing is to not have pain because we don’t want him to be come back and injured, come back and injured.
“We will try desperately to avoid that but he’s training the last two or three days with us and that’s good.”
Recall that Softfootball reported earlier that the Ballon d’Or winner was offered a new contract by Manchester City amids interest from La Liga giants Real Madrid.
