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Losing Rodri has really undermined the greatness that manchester city has had so far, their desire to continue to dominate the English league and UCL finally had to fail after the bad luck that befell them against Arsenal in the early season match, now the transfer market has opened and manchester city has tried to recruit several players who are considered capable of having a positive impact on their current performance, in my opinion, Guardiola previous mistake was the minimal rotation of players he did, so that when they get problems such as losing Rodri at this time there is no appropriate replacement to replace him, if we talk about the chances of winning in the EPL and UCL, actually their opportunities are wider open in the UCL this season than the EPL.
From your explanation it is very easy to conclude that Rodri has been the player that has been carrying Manchester City in his shoulders because the last time I checked Rodri didn't play all the matches in the times where Manchester City won or their trophies but they were incredible in their performance. Now the performance of Manchester City has greatly declined and the team is struggling to get back to good form, regardless of the situation that has affected Manchester City right now I think they need to work on their performance while they awaits the return of Rodri this is because even though Rodri comes out of injury now he may not perform well like before because most of the players of Manchester City are in poor form especially Haaland their goal getter.
Manchester City does not have the chances of winning any major trophies this season looking at their position in the domestic league, Liverpool is already favorite in the league and the champions League competition is another place where there are better teams eyeing the champions league trophy, Liverpool team is one of them cause they have the best performance so far.
I'm not saying that Rodri is the player who carried Manchester City on his own shoulders all this time, but the fact is that the conditions obtained by Manchester City this season are inseparable from the injury suffered by Rodri, Guardiola is a coach who implements collective play in his team but when a puzzle loses one of its pieces of course the puzzle will no longer be perfect, I think that's exactly what happened to their current squad, especially previously we can see if guardiola often relies on the main line-up of players in every their matches regardless of the team they face so far, so when one piece missing then other pieces are difficult to replace it and that makes manchester city slumped at the moment, if we talk about their chances in the league, I agree with you if liverpool is a strong candidate for the EPL championship, but in the UCL isn't their chance still open at this time to become champions although there are many obstacles from other best teams in competition?