DOES RODRI STILL HAVE KILLER INSTINCT?

LATE FITNESS TEST FOR ABSENT STAR WHO MIGHT BE DREAMING OF PASTURES NEW

We’re all Brentford fans today. Keith Andrews and his magnificent hair are under the microscope as they look to draw blood at The Etihad. The head coach first timer had this to say.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do over the next three games to put ourselves in a position of anything like that. The focus is on tomorrow first and foremost. We’re obviously running out of games and we want to finish the season really well.”

“Tomorrow is going to be really difficult but we want to go and show what a good team we are.”

My main interest in this game with regards to the starting 11 is whether Rodri is available.

“We’ll see this afternoon,”

“We have survived without him for many, many months; make a little bit problem of that.

“Still he doesn’t feel completely comfortable – and when he will be ready and fit to come back, we’ll see this afternoon – hopefully tomorrow (against Brentford).”

“It doesn’t depend on him.

“The goals we conceded (against Everton) were not dependent on Rodri not being there. The goals, we gave away, but not because Rodri was not there.”

That all sounds a little bit defensive to me. Watching Kovačić slip in Rohl with a bad slide tackle pours cold water over the idea that Rodri wouldn’t have improved the odds against Everton, also, the porous nature of their midfield in general would kind of indicate that he was a big absence.

At this stage of the season, you have to ask serious questions of players… they’ve just seen us smash Fulham, and exit Atlético to go to our first Champions League final under Mikel Arteta. Rodri wants to go to Madrid this summer. He probably wants to play in a World Cup. He probably senses the Premier League is a lost cause… how keen is he going to be to play through discomfort, knowing Pep is also out in the summer?

These are the questions I am asking right now, and I am not expecting answers from you unless you are a secret mole at City who wants to destroy from within.

This game is a horrible one for Pep G, whoever is playing. Brentford are well organised, compact, and they are very well tactically drilled. My personal view is they have better attackers and more weapons to harm than Everton did. If Man City are even slightly off their game, they will be killed.

Anything outside a win is the Premier League finished for them. That is a lot of pressure for a team harbouring extreme amounts of doubt right now. This is the sort of game I hope you can enjoy today. Everyone can feel something crazy might happen right now. Even if it doesn’t, look at the run they have coming up.

Brentford Saturday, Palace Wednesday, FA Cup Saturday, then 3 days later it’s Bournemouth away. That is a HORRIBLE run. I’m a little worried about the Bournemouth game, they have a mini crisis going on right now with one of their fullbacks allegedly caught messaging a child in a deeply inappropriate way. Will that impact them? Who knows. But they are a full back down.

The good thing about this moment… if we win all our games, nothing else matters.

But, wouldn’t it be nice if, for once, things rolled our way in the Premier League?

Yes it would.

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