Manchester City Spent £300m to Replace Rodri. Was It Worth It?

Manchester City always knew this summer would be defined by one departure above all others. With Pep Guardiola gone and experienced names like Bernardo Silva and John Stones allowed to leave on free transfers, the club faced a significant rebuild. But the biggest challenge by far was replacing the man at the base of midfield: Rodri, off to Barcelona after establishing himself as one of the most influential players of the Guardiola era.

City trimmed fringe numbers effectively, recouping fees for Sávio, Tijjani Reijnders, Nico González, James Trafford and Omar Marmoush. The real work, though, came in trying to solve the Rodri problem — a problem that, in truth, may not have a straightforward solution.

Why Rodri Is So Hard to Replace

Rodri’s status as the 2024 Ballon d’Or winner tells only part of the story. He dictated tempo from deep, won back possession better than almost anyone in Europe, and produced decisive moments in the biggest matches — not least the winning goal in the 2023 Champions League final against Inter Milan as City completed the treble.

His true value became clearest in his absence. When an ACL injury ruled him out for most of the 2024-25 season, a City side that had just won four straight Premier League titles collapsed by their own standards, finishing outside the top two for the first time since Guardiola’s debut campaign in 2016-17.

That history explains why new head coach Enzo Maresca and the City hierarchy moved so aggressively in the transfer market this summer, even at eye-watering cost.

The New Midfield Arrivals

City brought in three central midfielders across the summer window, each recruited for a different reason.

Between them, City’s new midfield trio includes two of the four most expensive signings in English football history, plus a third player who ranks 15th on that all-time list.

Context: A League-Wide Spending Spree

City are far from alone in paying inflated fees for central midfielders this summer. Chelsea paid £117m for Morgan Rogers, while Tottenham Hotspur spent close to £200m combined on Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes.

As the Declan Rice transfer at Arsenal has since proven, big fees are quickly forgotten if a player delivers. Rice has been transformative at the Emirates since his 2023 move, to the point where his price now looks like a bargain regardless of what Arsenal paid.

Is Enzo Fernández Worth £125m?

This is the signing drawing the most scrutiny. Fernández’s two and a half seasons at Chelsea produced Premier League finishes of sixth, fourth and 10th, with only the Conference League and Club World Cup to show for his time in west London. On the surface, that record makes a £125m fee — level with the British transfer record — hard to justify.

Fans who watched him at Chelsea may reasonably doubt he can have the same transformative effect Rice has had at Arsenal. But surrounded by stronger teammates and working under a manager in Maresca who already knows him well, there’s a case that City could get considerably more from Fernández than his underwhelming 2025-26 season suggested.

Fernández is something of an all-rounder, which can work against a player’s reputation because it’s harder to define a single standout quality — unlike Anderson, whose ball-winning is instantly identifiable. At Chelsea, Fernández played across multiple midfield roles, but he looked most effective when given license to push forward into attacking areas.

The Underlying Numbers

Despite operating in a Chelsea side that often looked disjointed, Fernández’s data from the 2025-26 Premier League season paints a more flattering picture than his return of 10 goals and four assists suggests.

The numbers suggest a player whose end product was undersold by his actual assist tally, largely because so much of his best work is the pass before the assist rather than the assist itself. His off-the-ball work rate and movement into dangerous areas also stand out — a sharp contrast to Cherki, who made just 47 comparable crossing-option runs last season and prefers the ball played to feet rather than making runs in behind.

Paired together at City, Fernández and Cherki give Maresca two of the league’s most creative passers in advanced areas. The likely setup sees Cherki further forward, pushing Fernández into a deeper role where he can make late runs from midfield, with Anderson handling more of the defensive and ball-winning responsibilities that once fell to Rodri.

Can Anyone Truly Replace Rodri?

No single player is likely to replicate what Rodri did for City. He topped the Premier League last season for successful passes per 90 minutes with 86.7, underlining his role as the platform on which the rest of the team’s rhythm was built.

Of the new arrivals, Bouaddi is the closest stylistic match, but at just 18 years old — despite a transfer fee upwards of £80m — he is unlikely to shoulder that responsibility immediately. He looks more like a long-term successor than an instant replacement.

Anderson, meanwhile, offers a different but related solution. As the Premier League’s most effective ball-winner last season — recovering possession 306 times, at least 94 more than any other player — he can cover much of Rodri’s defensive workload, freeing Fernández and others to focus on creating and scoring.

City haven’t replaced Rodri, and realistically, they were never going to. What they’ve built instead is a reshaped midfield with high individual quality and genuine potential, even if it comes with obvious risk given the scale of the outlay.

Much will depend on how quickly Maresca can get Anderson, Bouaddi and Fernández — plus the returning Cherki — functioning as a unit. Fernández in particular arrives with plenty of doubters, not helped by his goal against England at this summer’s World Cup, which has left many rival supporters eager to see him fail in England once again.

But if the underlying data is any guide, City may be getting a more effective player than his recent Chelsea form suggested. Life after Rodri will look different at the Etihad — but on the evidence of this rebuild, it need not be a downgrade.

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