Major Rodri injury update as Pep Guardiola reveals whether midfielder could feature in FA Cup final | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has responded to questions over whether Rodri could feature in a potential FA Cup final for the club at the end of the season.

The Spain international has been ruled out for the large majority of the ongoing campaign after he sustained a serious knee injury during the early stages of the season in a 2-2 home draw with Arsenal in the Premier League.

Having since gone on to win the Ballon d’Or and return regularly to Manchester City as a familiar face on the sidelines and in the dressing room, Rodri has also returned to training ground activities.

And the latest development from Pep Guardiola would once again appear to indicate that the club’s crucial defensive midfielder is on track to return to matchday duties before his initial return date of the FIFA Club World Cup this summer.

Those comments emerged during the manager’s latest pre-match press conference ahead of City’s clash with Nottingham Forest, as the coach was asked whether winning the FA Cup can start the process of rebuilding the team’s winning ‘aura’ developed over the last years.

“An FA Cup win does not give you certainty to come back to what we were. A title is a title, two days later it’s already forgotten. It’s recover what we were. A title is a number, OK we would be happy for our fans, for ourselves because we competed to win obviously, and it would be nice to finish in that way, to take a little break before we go to the [FIFA Club] World Cup,” Guardiola explained.

“But I’ve said and I will not change; the analysis is not how many trophies you win when you are not performing like you were in terms of everything. And what happened in going down, it can happen, right? It’s happened to all the teams in the world, not just Man City.

“What surprised me is it took eight years to arrive at this stage. So it can happen. Even with that [the dip], now we are third in the table! The damage was not good, but was not… But maybe for the public opinion or for everyone we were not vulnerable.

“Of course we were vulnerable, even when we win – there are not perfect teams. But for many reasons, and I’ve said a thousand million times in this press conference, there are reasons why we dropped maybe unexpectedly too much.”

The Manchester City manager continued, “And I have the feeling that next season we will be better, we will compete better, we will be more who we are. I’m not talking in saying that we’re going to win the Premier League, or we’re going to arrive in the last stages of the Champions League, or the FA Cup or the Carabao Cup I’m not talking about that.

“Because we will not have holidays, we will not have recovery, and I don’t know how we’ll react, but I THINK that the players even realise what they have to do to be a decent team. Aston Villa came here with the last 11 games winning 10, and in Villa Park against PSG – what a way to be defeated!

“That is the way I want to lose, and I think Aston Villa have to be proud of that. And against a team when you feel you are there, how good they are, we were there and we competed, we didn’t concede much, and we were stable with good spirit, good passion, desire – not tactics, forget about it!

“Have this humble behaviour to defend your club and your positions, that is a big, big talent. And I’m pretty sure we had and we will have again because I know the players and the club and we will be back again!”

One player who could be instrumental in getting Manchester City back to their usual outstanding standards and heights in European football is Rodri, who is continuing his recovery from an ACL injury sustained towards the beginning of the ongoing season.

Speaking on whether the reigning Ballon d’Or winner could feature in a potential FA Cup fianl later this season, Pep Guardiola admitted, “I don’t know. Every training session he’s doing with us, so he’s doing really well, I would say.”

He continued, “But yeah, I don’t know, to be honest I don’t know. Rodri wants [to play], but the doctors are going to tell me, ‘Pep, you have green lights to give him some minutes’, or so on. I will rely on the doctors in that case.”