Manchester City have to accept that Rodri may not sign a new contract at the Etihad but have been here before with star players
Manchester City’s hopes of getting Rodri to recommit his future to the club have reduced since the season ended. The player has not accepted any offers of a new deal and Real Madrid are turning their attention to the Ballon d’Or winner as his contract ticks down.
Rodri is currently on holiday after minor surgery on his back and Enzo Maresca said last week that he expects him back at the Etihad before the new season starts. But given the delicate web that Rodri and City weave with Real Madrid there is likely to be plenty more noise before then about a potential transfer.
City or Rodri could come out and put a stop to it all, with the player saying he is signing a new deal or the club putting a statement out detailing if there are any conditions that would allow for a sale. However, it is hard to see either party speaking up because it is not the sort of thing they do when they know it will antagonise people they are friendly to.
City have long held a golden rule with transfers that is often misquoted. Any player who wants to leave can do so as long as they bring an acceptable offer to the table – the second part is crucial.
Some Blues are already annoyed about the Rodri situation and that’s entirely understandable, and the last time City were in Hong Kong there was a situation where Pep Guardiola was steaming about how blatant Bayern Munich were being about signing Leroy Sane. City insisted he could leave as long as their valuation (of around £135m) was met, and when it wasn’t Sane played in the Community Shield and suffered an injury that ruined his season and his move.
On more than one occasion, significant bids for Bernardo Silva were knocked back because the player was deemed too valuable to lose at that time; he didn’t like it but he got on with it and left as a club great. On a smaller but related note for Rodri, City got so fed up with Barcelona trying to lowball them over defender Eric Garcia they calculated it was more valuable to keep him and let him leave on a free than to take the number that Barcelona were willing to go up to.
This is common in football recruitment – Kevin De Bruyne enlisted the help of data companies to calculate how much he was worth to City and how much it would cost them to replace him – and there will be a number for Rodri. It isn’t public yet but it is far higher than the 50 million euros that was mentioned about Real this week.
City’s CEO Ferran Soriano does not like the emotional side of transfers, and seeing Rodri go so soon after Silva would be an enormous loss to the team. Soriano is a numbers man though and knows that loss can be calculated, so it does not have to play on City emotions for the rest of the summer if everyone is clear on what figure it will take for Real to take the man that could win the Ballon d’Or for the second time in three years after lifting the World Cup with Spain.
Football is a business, but the more noise from Madrid without the club meeting City’s transfer requirements the more annoyed the Blues and Maresca are going to get. In any negotiation, making your seller angry never usually works out well for the buyer.
City have to accept that Rodri may not sign a new deal, but if they are to lose him either this summer or next it simply has to be on their terms.
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