"great anticipation, better positional sense" come with experience and you are comparing a player who has played 12 seasons for Barcelona first team to a player who has played 1 disrupted season for City. Compare more realistically when Rodri is 34 not 24. On the positive side Rodri has scored 3 goals in 39 games, Busquets only scored 9 in 383 games.I don’t agree he was ever slower than Rodri, even now I’d back busquets in a race but even accepting he was, he had great anticipation, better positional sense, used his body as a shield/obstacle far better and could make recovery tackles, Rodri is substantially inferior in all of those areas. He was also playing in arguably the greatest club side ever, they didn’t lose the ball, they won it back further up the pitch and it was revolutionary football, nobody knew the weaknesses back then because they couldn’t have enough of the ball to find them.
Just naming players for different sides who were also fairly slow doesn’t suddenly mean Rodri’s lack of pace isn’t an issue. In our team, right now, in his position, you need to be more mobile than he is and his lack of mobility is being exploited every game.
I wasn’t intentionally comparing him to anyone, someone else used Busquets relatively low mobility to suggest Rodri’s lack of mobility isn’t an issue. I merely pointed out how Busquets was substantially better equipped to thrive in that role than Rodri is."great anticipation, better positional sense" come with experience and you are comparing a player who has played 12 seasons for Barcelona first team to a player who has played 1 disrupted season for City. Compare more realistically when Rodri is 34 not 24. On the positive side Rodri has scored 3 goals in 39 games, Busquets only scored 9 in 383 games.
I understand the reason you used the Busquets reference. What I am saying is Rodri is 24 and has 10 years to develop a career that might emulate him. When Kompany, Silva and Aguero were 24 nobody could foresee how good they would become and let's be honest they all lacked elements of their game that they improved to be the legends they became.I wasn’t intentionally comparing him to anyone, someone else used Busquets relatively low mobility to suggest Rodri’s lack of mobility isn’t an issue. I merely pointed out how Busquets was substantially better equipped to thrive in that role than Rodri is.
Busquets played for Pep and was slower than Rodri.
Fortunately, I know that there is one person who knows what it takes to play the defensive midfield role in a Pep Guardiola side better than anybody who thinks Rodri is shit, and that's Pep Guardiola. Who went out, bought Rodri and has played him non-stop since he arrived. Because he plays the role well and is not too slow for it.
So I will enjoy the next 3 or 4 years with him as the mainstay in our midfield and a few select posters constantly bitching that he can't run the 100m fast enough.
Indeed Pep does deem Rodri the ideal player to play that role within his system; probably explains why Pep hasn’t gotten to a Champions League final for almost 10 years.
So what you're saying is that since I said you were negative about Rodri, you've 100% proven me correct by being constantly negative about Rodri?
I find this comment quite bizarre: we have won the first-ever domestic treble and achieved 100 points for the first time ever under the manager you intimate is now a failure. I suspect you are not here for genuine debate.Indeed Pep does deem Rodri the ideal player to play that role within his system; probably explains why Pep hasn’t gotten to a Champions League final for almost 10 years.
Football has moved on; other teams actually press and counter-press now too - even the original, infinitely more talented Busquets hasn’t been relevant in elite European football post-2015.
It’s no coincidence that the only team Rodri remotely looks a £60m player against is Burnley, with their primitive low block, straight line 4–4-2 where the strikers mark the opposition centrebacks and midfielders retreat, allowing him space between those lines to pick passes unchallenged like a plodding paella Pirlo.
Anyway, the fact Guardiola signed Rodri isn’t a glorious endorsement - if he had his way we’d have Maguire, Jorginho and Sanchez in the first 11 too. If Rodri’s a mainstay for the next 3/4 years, we’re fucked.
I find this comment quite bizarre: we have won the first-ever domestic treble and achieved 100 points for the first time ever under the manager you intimate is now a failure. I suspect you are not here for genuine debate.
What’s this ‘we’ business? Get to fuck you sad sack.Indeed Pep does deem Rodri the ideal player to play that role within his system; probably explains why Pep hasn’t gotten to a Champions League final for almost 10 years.
Football has moved on; other teams actually press and counter-press now too - even the original, infinitely more talented Busquets hasn’t been relevant in elite European football post-2015.
It’s no coincidence that the only team Rodri remotely looks a £60m player against is Burnley, with their primitive low block, straight line 4–4-2 where the strikers mark the opposition centrebacks and midfielders retreat, allowing him space between those lines to pick passes unchallenged like a plodding paella Pirlo.
Anyway, the fact Guardiola signed Rodri isn’t a glorious endorsement - if he had his way we’d have Maguire, Jorginho and Sanchez in the first 11 too. If Rodri’s a mainstay for the next 3/4 years, we’re fucked.
Indeed Pep does deem Rodri the ideal player to play that role within his system; probably explains why Pep hasn’t gotten to a Champions League final for almost 10 years.
Football has moved on; other teams actually press and counter-press now too - even the original, infinitely more talented Busquets hasn’t been relevant in elite European football post-2015.
It’s no coincidence that the only team Rodri remotely looks a £60m player against is Burnley, with their primitive low block, straight line 4–4-2 where the strikers mark the opposition centrebacks and midfielders retreat, allowing him space between those lines to pick passes unchallenged like a plodding paella Pirlo.
Anyway, the fact Guardiola signed Rodri isn’t a glorious endorsement - if he had his way we’d have Maguire, Jorginho and Sanchez in the first 11 too. If Rodri’s a mainstay for the next 3/4 years, we’re fucked.