A term was coined in Barcelona a few years ago to refer to how much their hopes rested on their best player: ‘Messidependencia’. We might not quite be at the stage where fresh portmanteaus are being constructed to describe Manchester City ’s reliance on Rodri . But his serious knee injury , sustained in the draw with Arsenal at the weekend and which is likely to rule him out for a significant period of time, is clearly a massive blow for Pep Guardiola’s side.
Advertisement The injury has disrupted one of the more extraordinary runs of success for a single player: since February 2023, he has lost just one game for club and country, that one game being last season’s FA Cup final against Manchester United . That’s 93 games played, one defeat. He’s not just one of the world’s best players in his position, he’s one of the world’s best full stop , and more specifically he’s the most valuable player for arguably Europe’s best club and national side.
Or is he? Judging a player’s value to a team is a tricky and inexact business. You can rely on the eye test, the rather old-fashioned method of watching football matches and deciding from that who you think is most indispensable. Clearly that is subjective, and while most would probably agree on Rodri’s status at City, some opinions will differ.
Another way is to look at the statistics of a team and form some judgement that way. Again, this is imperfect because correlation does not necessarily mean causation; .
