Rodri is labouring after injury<\/p>\n
At Bod\u00f8\/Glimt, in a first Champions League outing since 1 October, the 29-year-old appeared what he is: a player still recovering after 18 months out with a serious knee injury and several related setbacks. This was only a third start since his latest return began with the second 45 minutes of the goalless draw at Sunderland on New Year\u2019s Day. Last week Rodri declared he was \u201cready to go\u201d and said: \u201cI\u2019m really happy to be on the pitch every single day.\u201d Yet in Saturday\u2019s 2-0 loss at Manchester United<\/a> he was a one-paced, non-factor unable to do what he did with ease pre\u2011anterior cruciate ligament rupture: run midfield and so the contest. In Tuesday\u2019s 3-1 humbling in Norway<\/a> the Spaniard was the same, and two moments tell the tale of his form. First Jens Petter Hauge left him a statue before registering a memorable long-range strike for Bod\u00f8\u2019s third goal; then came the two yellow cards in two minutes that had Rodri sent off.<\/p>\n Haaland hit by scoring struggles<\/p>\n You have to go back a full month for the last time Erling Haaland netted other than from the penalty spot, with two goals at West Ham in Manchester City\u2019s 3-0 win<\/a>. His sole strike in eight games since was in the 1-1 draw against Brighton<\/a> on 7 January, the goal-glutton somehow failing to register even when Exeter were given a 10-1 beating<\/a> in the FA Cup third round. After the Bod\u00f8 defeat, a sour return for Haaland to his native country, he was asked about the fallow run. \u201cI don\u2019t have the answers,\u201d he said. \u201cI take full responsibility for not being able to score the goals I should do.\u201d Haaland branded the loss \u201cembarrassing\u201d and he and City\u2019s other three members of the captaincy group agreed that the 374 travelling fans should be reimbursed their tickets for the game \u2013 a sum of \u00a39,357. The 25-year-old has 20 goals in the Premier League (in 22 games) and six in seven Champions League appearances, part of a phenomenal 26 in 31 matches in all competitions. So maybe it is time merely for a breather and for Omar Marmoush to have a game or two as the City spearhead.<\/p>\n Manchester City\u2019s Erling Haaland has not scored from open play since mid December. Photograph: Andrew Boyers\/Action Images\/ReutersGuardiola grasping for explanations<\/p>\n In the Aspmyra Stadion\u2019s below-freezing conditions City\u2019s manager seemed a man petrified by his side\u2019s tameness, unable to affect their fortunes whatever he tried. Example: at 2-0 down at the start of the second half he briefly switched to a wingback system that had Phil Foden on the left and Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri on the right but this soon vanished, as did any true hope when Hauge made it 3-0. After the final whistle Guardiola was left grasping for an explanation for a run that shows zero league wins in 2026. \u201cWhen we started New Year\u2019s Day we missed [chances] and after then came injuries and Matheus [Nunes] has flu,\u201d he said. \u201cMany things are against us. Now, because we lost important players we lost a little bit, but in general the tone of the team was much better against Bod\u00f8 than United.\u201d For the trip to the Arctic Circle the list of absentees ran to 11: Josko Gvardiol, Nunes, R\u00faben Dias, Nico Gonz\u00e1lez, Savinho, J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku, Oscar Bobb, Antoine Semenyo, John Stones, Mateo Kovacic and Bernardo Silva. The insipid manner of the defeat \u2013 as at United \u2013 concerns the manager.<\/p>\n Foden a shadow of himself<\/p>\n The last of City\u2019s Big Four who should be disappointed in a downward trajectory on the performance graph is Foden, who is playing more like the brother of the \u201cStockport Iniesta\u201d than the player who shone earlier in the season. Substituted at half-time of the derby defeat, he again did not last the full game at Bod\u00f8, being removed on 70 minutes. This season Foden has 10 goals in 30 appearances and four assists: not shabby, except he last scored five and a half weeks ago and last created a goal eight days earlier. The hope will be that Foden, Rodri, Haaland and Guardiola are experiencing an unfortunate midwinter slump at the same time, rather than this being part of a deeper, more fundamental malaise. Off the field it is the manager\u2019s problem to understand and solve, but on the pitch Foden and the rest, as City\u2019s main actors, have to take the lead or the team will not \u201cbe there\u201d in April and May, as Guardiola likes to say \u2013 in the hunt for the title, Champions League and FA Cup.<\/p>\n Pep Guardiola and Phil Foden have struggled to find answers to City\u2019s problems. Photograph: Dave Thompson\/AP\u2026 some good news: Gu\u00e9hi is in the building<\/p>\n Signing a 25-year-old first-choice England defender entering his prime years for \u00a320m<\/a> will prove a coup if Marc Gu\u00e9hi can perform as slickly as he has for his country and when captaining Crystal Palace \u2013 particularly when leading the club to last season\u2019s FA Cup win<\/a>. Gu\u00e9hi\u2019s calm head and nimble pace have arrived just when City required a fillip, because a big factor in the faltering form are the injuries to Gvardiol, Dias and Stones, the frontline centre-backs. With Abdukodir Khusanov, 21, improving in the middle of the rearguard via a blend of aggression and speed, Gu\u00e9hi and the Uzbekistan international could emerge from the team\u2019s torpor as an A-list partnership that will cover for the prolonged absence of Gvardiol and Dias.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rodri is labouring after injury At Bod\u00f8\/Glimt, in a first Champions League outing since 1 October, the 29-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-428206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}