Manchester City left the Etihad with a valuable 2-1 victory over Arsenal but also with a concern: Rodri exited late with a groin problem. Guardiola confirmed after the game that the midfielder had sustained a groin injury, raising questions about his availability for the busy schedule ahead.<\/p>\n
The Spaniard remains on a careful path back from a long-term knee problem. It was against Arsenal at the Etihad last season where the Ballon d’Or winner 2024 tore his ACL, a setback that derailed City\u2019s bid for a fifth consecutive league title. Rodri recovered from that knee injury almost a year ago but has battled niggles through the first half of the 2025\u201326 season and has not yet fully returned to his pre-injury peak.<\/p>\n
Still, he produced a significant contribution in the Etihad victory: a team-high 11 defensive contributions and the second-most duels won (nine). His presence in the box also unsettled the Arsenal defence during the sequence that led to Erling Haaland\u2019s winner. He was unable to finish the match and was replaced by Nico Gonz\u00e1lez in the closing stages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d was the message the City boss received from his medical team before any further scans could be conducted, a response that leaves Rodri\u2019s participation for the trip to Turf Moor in doubt. The quick turnaround after Sunday\u2019s hard-fought win means there is a strong chance he does not play midweek even if the groin issue proves minor.<\/p>\n
City can move to the top of the table for the first time since August with victory at Turf Moor, and Guardiola also has an FA Cup semi-final against Championship Southampton to manage in the coming period. Burnley are as good as down, having won just one league game since October, and the current momentum suggests City can prevail regardless of who partners Bernardo Silva in midfield.<\/p>\n
Nico Gonz\u00e1lez\u2019s late appearance was his first Premier League outing since February. The January signing impressed in the autumn and offers a steady option should Rodri be sidelined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Guardiola: \u201cWe\u2019ll see,\u201d over Rodri’s groin issue after the Etihad win, Turf Moor now in doubt Update<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,969],"tags":[1073,1254,1064],"class_list":["post-12427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-premier-league","tag-acl-injury","tag-adductor-injury","tag-ballon-dor-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}