Can Manchester City Win The Title Without Rodri?

Manchester City are vulnerable without Rodri, there’s no doubt about it. If you look at their record with Rodri in the team and compare it to their results without Rodri, there is an obvious difference.

The win percentage alone must be of major concern to City fans. With Rodri in the team, City win 74% of their Premier League matches. Without him, that rate drops significantly to 59% – and that is a huge problem.

Pep Guardiola has a real issue on his hands now. Who steps up? You could suggest that no footballer is irreplaceable but Rodri is the glue that holds this City side together, not just defensively but he’s also popped up with some crucial goals over the years.

The numbers are now heavily leaning towards ‘no’ to whether City will retain the Premier League crown or not. While Erling Haaland’s goal-scoring exploits continue to gloss over some of the problems, there is enough cause for concern at the Etihad Stadium.

Statistics aren’t everything in football but they can paint a picture and give an idea into the current state of things. And that is where we can use numbers to try and estimate an outcome, which is what we are going to do below.

Take last season, for example. City lifted the Premier League title for the fourth year in a row, recording a total of 91 points from 38 matches. That works out at just shy of 80% of the total points available if they won every league game.

We’re six games into the 2024/25 season at the time of writing and City have picked up 14 points. If Rodri is ruled out for the rest of the campaign and they operate at a 59% win ratio, they’ll win 19 of their remaining fixtures – which would give them an additional 57 points.

Taking the draws and losses ratio without Rodri into account, the numbers suggest that City would also draw four and lose nine. If accurate, this would give City a total of 75 points, which is some way shy of the tally required to retain the Premier League title.

In fact, 75 points has won the crown just once in the Premier League era and that was back in 1996/97. The average points tally recorded by title winners over the past 30 years has been 87.8 points and City’s average without Rodri would fall some way short.

Having said that, we can assume that City’s win rate without the Spaniard will improve – given the number of Premier League games in the sample is a measly 22 matches, it is probably too early to form too strong of a view on this.

City have won the title in six of the last seven seasons and the average points total has crept up, with 93.6 points needed to clinch the coveted Premier League trophy if you look back at the last eight campaigns.

Arsenal are a side in the ascendency while Rodri-less City are arguably dropping off. It is hard to maintain that hunger and desire when you’ve been so successful while Arsenal are desperately trying to win the title for the first time since 2004.

Of course, Manchester City can win the title without Rodri but the numbers suggest that Pep’s men will find it harder than ever. And given the calibre of opposition, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see the Premier League trophy dressed in red come May.