Rodri faces new injury setback, expected to miss action until September

New Delhi: Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has confirmed that midfielder Rodri will be out of action until at least mid-September. He suffered an injury setback during the Club World Cup match against Al-Hilal.

The Spain international has been making progress in training, but the Man City boss revealed that he is unlikely to be fully fit before the September international break. The club struggled throughout the 2024-25 campaign without Rodri's services.

Pep Guardiola's team finished in third position and failed to win any trophies in a remarkably low-key season by their standards. Now, they are set to start the season without him once more.

He has largely been doing individual work away from the first team since the players returned from their summer break last week. The midfielder has taken part in two full training sessions this week but was not included in the squad to travel to Palermo for a friendly match this weekend.

He will also miss out on the opening game of the Premier League against Wolves. Rodri is among the four players who were left behind to avoid injury risks. England forward Phil Foden, Josko Gvardiol and youngster Claudio Echeverri are all not fully fit and thus haven't travelled with the team.

Foden and Gvardiol might start against Wolves at Molineux next Saturday, August 16, but Rodri is set to miss the opening fixture of the new season.

Pep Guardiola told the reporters that the midfielder is getting better, but he had a big injury in the last game against Al Hilal. The Man City boss further added that Rodri has trained better in the last few days, and hopefully, he will be fit after the international break.

"Hopefully in these games he can play some minutes but what is important is he doesn't have pain because we don't want this Rodri coming back injured. We try desperately to avoid that. He has been training the last two sessions with us and that's good" Guardiola added.