Rodri an ideal cog to guard Blues machine

WHEN City took the decision not to sign a replacement for Vincent Kompany this summer, Pep Guardiola will have been well aware of football’s capricious ability to shine an unwanted spotlight on such calls.

So it is no surprise that weeks into the season the Blues have seen two of their remaining three central defenders sidelined through injury, with Aymeric Laporte out until 2020 and John Stones now absent for five or six weeks.

Had City’s defensive players avoided injury this season then the gamble of not signing a replacement for Kompany would soon have been forgotten. Instead we’re in mid-September and it’s open season on the transfer market risk they have taken.

To make matters worse, it’s probably City’s two best centre backs who have gone down with injury. Nicolas Otamendi was expected to leave the Etihad this summer, now he finds himself as the last defender standing.

Stones’ injury will open the door to Fernandinho for an extended run in the side in a relatively new position.

Guardiola and his coaching staff will be putting in the work on the training ground to bring an untried and untested partnership up to speed. He knows how City cope without Stones and Laporte could decide the narrative of this season.

If they come through this spell unscathed then the decision not to replace Kompany can be rectified in January with no damage done.

If defensive injuries come close to derailing the season then the scrutiny on that judgement will only increase.

Otamendi and Fernandinho look like certainties on the teamsheet for the next few weeks, but the most important man in bringing security to that vulnerable defence might be new boy Rodri, who needs to be up to speed with the City system very quickly.

It seems implausible that Guardiola would bring in Ilkay Gundogan and opt for two number sixes, rather than two number eights, in his midfield. That puts a significant workload on the defensive midfielder in this side, a role Fernandinho had become an expert in, with his reading of the game regularly snuffing out any dangerous attacks.

But with the 34-year-old dropping back in the system it means Rodri has to take up the slack now, to quickly show he can do the firefighting work that Fernandinho did so well.

Ordinarily it would take time for the Spaniard to reach those standards, but the defensive injury crisis has taken that bedding-in period away.

The comparisons between Rodri and Sergio Busquets certainly suggest that the Blues have found their perfect defensive midfielder.

Guardiola brought the best out of Busquets, whose ability to seemingly do the work of two men in midfield laid the platform for Barcelona’s midfield aristocrats Xavi and Andreas Iniesta to play further forward.

With City’s defence looking stretched, they now desperately need the protection and the assurance Fernandinho offered. If Rodri can continue to settle into that role over the next few weeks then he might just become the most important player for Guardiola in coping with the shortages in manpower at the back.

The early signs have been encouraging, but Fernandinho had become such a vital cog in the City machine that replacing him will be no simple task, especially when the Blues require a complete defensive midfielder more than ever just now.