The Influence of Rodri vs. His Liverpool Equivalent

Manchester City will miss Rodri hugely this season. His influence for the Premier League champions is enormous. Do Liverpool have anybody of similar value?

“I really think it's something that worries us. We are the guys who suffer… If people want to see better football, then we need to rest." RODRI

“What we want is to give our best for the football, if you are tired you cannot compete at a high level.” ALISSON BECKER

“Players are repeatedly saying that enough is enough, and this must now act as a serious wake up call to the authorities.” THE PFA

The three quotes here were all reported in a single story less than a month ago. Opta Analyst published an article on player workloads earlier today, it’s a hot topic. Since the above lines were uttered, most people’s pick for the best midfielder in the world has seen his season ended before it really began. The top goalkeeper in the game then suffered an injury which will keep him out until after the November international break.

Too much football, anyone? Not for the money men. Tough luck, players, or anyone who wants to watch high quality matches rather than zombified athletes stumbling around. There’s another game to play today, tomorrow, sometime, always.

Manchester City have unfortunately been handed the opportunity to experience what Liverpool went through in 2020/21. The Reds lost Virgil van Dijk for the season early in that campaign. The cost was not limited to a player who truly merits the indefinable description of world class either.

His positional colleagues were then overplayed, eventually suffering long-term injuries themselves. Jürgen Klopp was left with a central-defensive partnership of Fabinho and Jordan Henderson for the visit of City in a deserted stadium. It was no surprise when they got their biggest win at Anfield since the 1930s. No matter how good Pep Guardiola’s side undoubtedly is, it is inevitable that the loss of Rodri will catch up with them eventually.

Perhaps it already has. City lost the expected goal score by the widest margin of their 50-game home unbeaten run last weekend, although they won the game 3-2. No matter that Fulham have started 2024/25 well, nobody would’ve anticipated them posting the joint-second best non-penalty xG difference a visiting team has inflicted at the Etihad in the last seven years.

Image via: https://theanalyst.com/eu/2024/10/manchester-city-win-despite-xg-deficiency

We can’t assign this underlying statistical outcome entirely to the absence of Rodri. City’s starting XI are collectively paid about three times more than their Fulham counterparts, a simple yet effective way of assessing player quality, so they would have still expected to dominate proceedings easily enough.

But as I recently discussed in an episode of the Distance Covered podcast, it is possible to use expected goal numbers to assess how a team performs with or without any of their players. In this regard, Rodri almost stands alone.