Agreed. His first season was rocky but he's found his footing. Built like a brick house
Rodri | Man City player
- Thread starter Samid
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Definitely not 2 years, he's been criticised in this thread a year ago and City fans weren't exactly backing him at the time.
Turned it around as the season went on though.
Easy to improve when Pep turns to a defensive, class 9 formation.
Definitely. That's not what happened, though is it? City still dominate possession and chances in almost every game and Cancelo still plays as high up as ever.
Rodri hasn't improved or gotten worse, City fans are just finally noticing that there is another kind of DM other than Fernandinho, who's basically irreplaceable. We were spoiled by a world class midfielder who never makes mistakes, now reality is sinking in.
Yeah he's still not exactly special. Solid and reliable, doesn't lose the ball too much and you get the odd magnificent pass out of him, but he's not why you pay your ticket money. Kalvin Phillips without the pressing but a bit stronger in the tackle.
It is what happened though. False 9 drops back and their defence steps further forward with the signing of Dias. His biggest weakness of covering ground is offset by the team playing closer together.
That block though. As good as a goal.
"Solid, reliable, doesn't lose the ball too much and get the odd magnificent pass out of him" is pretty special for a DM I'd say.
He is one of the best passers, if not the best, in the game now.
Tidy with his passing and mostly excellent reading of the game. He'd stroll into our side on one leg, the Kalvin Phillips comparisons are odd for me, Rodri is far better for mine.
Sounds a bit too optimistic but if you restrict it to DMs / pivots then yeah, he is top notch. Very good at passing under the pressure, too.
He is really close to becoming the best DM you can get in the modern era, he is still a step behind in terms of facing the midfield that can really physically bully you - Fernandinho with his antics could deal with them alone.
Probably down to good coaching.
Very good player, a good level below world class though. I like him a lot, wanted us to buy him when he played for Atletico.
Literally everything you want from a holding midfielder
Pretty special is Kanté who wins the ball, drives with it, rarely loses it. Rodri is just good. In days gone by nobody would ever have known his name but there's a bit of a lack of good DLPs and DMs around at the moment it seems.
Pace, creative passing, higher workrate, more aggression?
Kante is more limited than Rodri.
Pace for a DM ?
Everything is easy when Pep and Klopp do it, it seems.
I wish we could copy some of those super easy things. Would be nice, wouldn’t it?
he's the best DM in the world and the gap between him and Rodri is huge.Kante isn’t a DM though is he. A more apt comparison from Chelsea would be Jorginho
Why not? If they don't have it then they're always going to be limited players who can rarely help in getting forward. It's like full backs - if they don't have pace they're either going to rarely get forward or get caught out frequently and need cover at the back.
He's class. He was excellent in Spain and I wanted us to sign him before he moved to City. He didn't have a great first season, but he's been excellent since.
Which one among the best DMs in the history of the game had serious pace ?
Serious pace? Maybe Kanté. More pace than Rodri? Loads of them. Keane, Gattuso, Vieira, Busquets, Makelele, Casemiro, Davids, Rijkaard, many more no doubt as well.
It doesn't even matter. If pace was the most significant factor in determining the quality of a DM we'd be set with Fred.
He’s really come on leaps and bounds in the last twelve months, and has probably been our most consistent performer so far this season bar Bernardo. Just needs to learn a bit more from Fernandinho in the dark arts department.
Come on man, he's so much better than Phillips.
He definitely had more pace than Rodri. So did Carrick in fact. Rodri is pretty slow really.
And I'm not going to have the debate about Kanté, he's the ultimate DM regardless of whether he plays the role in the traditional safe sort of way.
How would you be sure that Busquets had more pace than Rodri ?
Clearly it is impossible for me to be sure of that, I just remember Busquets as not being slow and Rodri is pretty slow which is why he barely leaves his own half unlike, say, Fernandinho. I don't exactly feel the need to set up a sprint between them on FIFA to prove the point though as it doesn't matter. Rodri is a very solid, functional DM, nothing wrong with him. He's not particularly fast, aggressive or skilful though and does not compare to top DMs of the past in my view. More or less the same way I feel about Rice really, albeit they have slightly different qualities to each other.
I seriously doubt you watch City or Rodri play because your assessment of him is incorrect, which is why no one here agrees with your opinion of him.
The same goes for Kante, whom you insist on calling a DM though everyone who watches Chelsea can see that he doesn't play as a DM.
Spot on. He has actually moved to an even higher level this season and has now become one of the most important players in the City team.
Kante is a DM and a real DM, he just defends all over the pitch like Gatusso. its short-sighted to think a DM must play like Rice not ever crossing the halfway line
I mean, Kanté goes through very long spells where the Chelsea fans get fed up to high hell with how average he is on the ball and how little he helps in attack. It was only after Tuchel came in last season that he started performing again.
He really turned it around during autumn/winter last season. Just like Gundogan, Cancelo and Stones. He clearly is a Top5 DM in the world right now but I think overall City players are underrated. Fernandinho, David Silva, Aguero and his unbelievable stats in England, peak Yaya... Some of the best to ever play in England but they never receive enough credit.
You could argue that's down bad coaching? No DM is good enough to drive a team forward on their own - that's not their job. The whole Kanté as no.10 experiment was always a terrible idea and then Lampard just wasn't very good.