Rodri has warned that something needs to change at Manchester City after he made almost 60 appearances last season.
The holding midfielder has arguably been City’s most important player over the last few campaigns, thanks to his role in the middle of the pitch and ability to pop up in big moments.
The latter has never been more evident than last season, when he scored the winning goal in the Champions League final to secure City’s historic treble.
Rodri sends warning
However, Rodri has warned that playing so many matches in a single season could have serious consequences for both him and the team.
“I don’t remember exactly the games I played but I think I have to have a talk with the club and with the coach because starting 57, 59 games and playing 60-something in general is not healthy,” he said, via The Athletic.
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“You can do it one season but two or three in a row it could be worse for the team in the sense that the physicality can drop, so we have to watch out for these kinds of things and, for sure, with my people we have already spoken and said it cannot be like this.
“If you see the minutes on paper I played seven, eight, nine games more than the second player but it’s not a problem. The important thing for me is that they know the situation and they know for next season we have to watch out for this.
“Now I’m young, but maybe when I’m 30 or 31 I cannot do these kind of things so I have to watch the body, because 60 games is not the best thing for a player. But also the seasons are like this — they are even longer every year — we have to adapt to this.”
Part of the reason Rodri played so much last season was that Kalvin Phillips was injured in the opening months of the campaign, and was not trusted by Pep Guardiola during the run-in.
A marked improvement from Phillips – plus the arrival of Mateo Kovacic – should hopefully ease Rodri’s workload.