After a month without Ballon d'Or candidate Rodri, how are Man City doing?

ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER — Rodri will arrive in Paris on Monday as one of the frontrunners for the top prize at the Ballon d'Or . The central midfielder's magisterial form for Manchester City and Spain means he is indisputably one of the best footballers on the planet.

Next year, he will not be nominated.

It is just over a month since the 28-year-old suffered a serious knee injury during the first half of City's 2-2 draw against Arsenal . He required surgery to repair a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament and will miss the rest of this season.

Rodri's prolonged absence brought a sense of dread for City fans. Of the four Premier League games he did not start last season, Pep Guardiola's serial champions lost three. The picture is somewhat better this time around. City won their first three league games without any involvement from Rodri, who was granted extra rest after suffering an injury during Spain's Euro 2024 final win over England.

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"By the way we're playing," City defender Manuel Akanji answered succinctly when asked how the the league leaders were coping without Rodri. "We haven't lost a game this year, so I think we're doing well."

You certainly can't argue with the statistics. Keen amateur mathematician Akanji certainly wouldn't dream of doing so.

City have not lost a Premier League match since Rodri was suspended for a trip to Aston Villa last December. Following his Arsenal injury, they have won six out of seven undefeated games across all competitions, including each of the past five.

Their only defeat in all competitions in the year 2024 — not including the penalty-shootout Champions League elimination by Real Madrid in April — came in the FA Cup final, when they lost 2-0 to Manchester United.

Are Man City worse without Rodri?

But if you scratch below that top line for the Premier League's only remaining unbeaten team this term, then the picture is a little murkier. The most recent of those wins, 1-0 against the Premier League's bottom team Southampton, became a bit of a slog on Saturday. Six days earlier, they needed John Stones' dramatic VAR-approved winner in the fifth minute of stoppage time at 19th-placed Wolves. The 3-2 home win over Fulham earlier in the month featured a second-half performance so poor that Guardiola keeps bringing it up unprovoked in press conferences.

"It's difficult. Look at Wolves, how good they can play and look at Southampton," Guardiola said.  "They are at the bottom of the league. My God. If these teams are at the bottom of the league, what do you do with the other ones? This is my feeling."

Rodri is one of six senior first-team players unavailable at the moment, with Kevin De Bruyne's injury setback being keenly felt. Kyle Walker and Jack Grealish might not have shown their best form for City over the past year but, like Rodri and De Bruyne, they enhance the team's overall physical capacity in and out of possession. As a consequence, they have looked notably more vulnerable to counter-attacks.

"Everybody knows how good of a player Rodri is and he helps us a lot in the team, but we also have good players who can play in this position, with Kova [Mateo Kovacic] and Gundo [Ilkay Gundogan] or even John [Stones] or myself," Akanji said. "Rico [Lewis] can play in there as well.

"We still have enough options. It's obviously different to Rodri, but everyone has different qualities and I think we're handling it really well."

Who is Rodri's replacement at Man City?

Guardiola's penchant for inverted full-backs and centre-backs moving into midfield, along with City's over-arching principle of positional play, means plenty of players are adept in the areas where Rodri excels. Kalvin Phillips' ill-fated time at the Etihad Stadium showed collective solutions rather than specialist cover is maybe a better way forward when it concerns a player as exceptional and as specialised as the ex-Atletico Madrid and Villarreal man.

Bernardo Silva can also muck in deeper in the midfield positions. Against Southampton, Phil Foden frequently dropped in after halftime and used his impressive and varied passing range to try to prompt different angles of attack.

"When they defend so deep, it happens — dropping a little bit to get the ball in front of halfway — [but] his incredible potential to shoot from the 18-yard box, we have to use it," Guardiola said, confirming Foden's wandering display was down to the player's intuition.

"I prefer Phil close to Erling [Haaland] because his sense of goal is unique, but I have to admit that when he drops and can shoot, like for example the goal against West Ham to win the Premier League last season, these type of goals… I think he's a really, really good player. We can use it [Foden dropping deep] when the opponents defend so, so deep."

If City are muddling through, the results and the players involved mean it has to be considered deluxe muddling. Tougher tasks at home and abroad lie in wait, but Rodri's supporting cast has provided a strong foundation from which Guardiola and outgoing director of football Txiki Begiristain can assess whether or not reinforcements are required in January.

"It's still the start of the season and we have things to improve but we've been playing well the last few games," Akanji added. "We have this every match now: the whole [opposition] team is defending in their 18-yard box.

"We try to defend well and attack and we are doing it really well. We have to keep going and coming up with new ideas, trusting in what we're doing, and it's going well now."