Rodri Out After Back Surgery as Maresca Starts Tenure

Manchester City’s new season will start with a familiar problem: life without Rodri.

The midfield cornerstone has undergone back surgery and faces what the club describe as a “short period of rehabilitation”, leaving fresh manager Enzo Maresca to prepare his first competitive games without the man who usually knits everything together.

Maresca had flagged the operation on Friday, admitting his lynchpin needed to shut everything down.

“He needs a holiday, he needs to rest and recover and then he will be back with us,” the Italian said, outlining a rare pause in a relentless schedule for a player who has carried club and country for years.

No specific return date has been set. No countdown, no target match ringed on the calendar. Just rest, recovery and a degree of uncertainty.

City confirmed that Rodri had “been feeling discomfort for some time but has now undergone a procedure to address the issue”. The wording hints at an issue managed in the background, now finally brought to a head.

All this comes at a delicate moment in his career and in City’s planning. Rodri has just a year left on his contract and has been heavily linked with Real Madrid, the speculation intensifying after he led Spain to World Cup glory this month and walked away with the player of the tournament award. His stock has never been higher; his body has rarely been under greater strain.

Those strains have shown. The past two seasons have been chopped up by injuries, the most brutal of them a torn anterior cruciate ligament that wiped out most of City’s 2024-25 campaign for him. When he plays, City look balanced, ruthless, almost inevitable. When he doesn’t, they look human.

Maresca now has to plot the opening weeks of his reign without that safety net.

City meet Arsenal in the Community Shield on 16 August, a curtain-raiser that will immediately test the Italian’s tweaks and ideas. A week later they launch their Premier League defence at home to Bournemouth on 23 August. Whether Rodri will be fit for either remains unclear, and City are not rushing to answer that question.

Gvardiol commits long term amid uncertainty around Rodri

While Rodri steps away to repair and reset, another pillar of City’s future has quietly locked in his.

As reported by BBC Sport in June, Josko Gvardiol has signed a new five-year contract, tying the Croatia defender to the club until the summer of 2031. It is a statement deal, both in length and timing.

Gvardiol, still only 24, has already packed 122 appearances into his City career since arriving from RB Leipzig in August 2023. In that short span he has collected six trophies, including the Premier League title in his debut season. He has adapted, evolved and, at times, dominated.

If Rodri’s situation raises questions about succession in midfield, Gvardiol’s extension answers a few at the back. City know exactly who they want marshalling their defence for the next decade.

So Maresca starts his tenure with a contrast: his most influential midfielder on the treatment table and at the centre of transfer noise, his rising defensive cornerstone signed, sealed and settled.

The surgery will heal. The speculation around Rodri will swirl. The fixtures will not wait.