Manchester City has received the worst news imaginable over Rodri following an injury the midfielder sustained against Arsenal. It may yet also confirm Liverpool’s worst fears.
Manchester City star Rodri is set to be out for the season after suffering a torn ACL against Arsenal. The brutal prognosis could have significant implications for the title race, but Liverpool may also harbor a quiet concern.
On paper, this setback for Manchester City boosts Liverpool and Arsenal’s prospects in the hunt for the Premier League crown. That’s never a nice way of looking at injuries, and the bitter setback will not be celebrated at Anfield, but there’s also no escaping the fact that Pep Guardiola has lost the world’s best defensive midfielder from his team – having loaned out a ready-made replacement, Kalvin Phillips – before the season began.
But it would be naive to think that Manchester City will not react. And the response from the Etihad could reveal a lot about Liverpool.
The Reds, of course, have been in the market for an elite number six for some time. It missed out on Aurelien Tchouameni in the summer of 2022, before failing to attract Moises Caicedo the following summer.
And in the latest saga, Martin Zubimendi opted to stay at Real Sociedad rather than make the move to Liverpool. Once again, the decision was made at Anfield to make do with current options rather than pursue a sub-par alternative (and Ryan Gravenberch has been thriving, in fairness).
It will be interesting, then, to see if Manchester City reaches the same conclusion. And if it also decides that Zubimendi is the only realistic upgrade for a top side, then Liverpool will be very interested to see if Guardiola gets his man.
After all, the current version of events is that Zubimendi was too committed to his boyhood club to make the move. And it’s a plausible account — he is from the Basque region, which has historically fostered uniquely close ties to its homegrown players.
There were similar mitigating circumstances in all of Liverpool’s recent failed pursuits. Caicedo is a boyhood Chelsea fan, and in the cases of Tchouameni and Jude Bellingham, Real Madrid has always been something of a special case.
But with Rodri out for a prolonged spell, and likely to have turned 29 by the time he returns, Manchester City could well look to Zubimendi as both a stop-gap and a successor. And if it can succeed where Liverpool failed, the creeping fears about the declining effectiveness of the Anfield recruitment operation will arguably be realized.
Certainly, there will be cause for plenty of concern. Having suffered high-profile transfer rejections even while Jurgen Klopp was still at the helm, there was always a risk that a lower-profile figure like Arne Slot would cause an initial dip in pulling power.
There’s now an increasing chance that Manchester City could test that theory. And if it can either extricate Zubimendi from Real Sociedad or else successfully identify another viable elite-level candidate, it will not reflect particularly well on Liverpool.
