“It’s our reality” – Rodri hands reality check on Manchester City’s title chances | OneFootball

Manchester City midfielder Rodri provided an honest assessment of his side’s prospects in the title race after a difficult 2-0 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday.

City saw their deficit to Premier League leaders Arsenal extend to seven points this weekend, with Mikel Arteta and co playing out a goalless draw with Nottingham Forest at the City Ground as they missed the chance to extend their lead at the top to nine points.

Guardiola’s men are yet to win in the Premier League in 2026, having drawn thrice in succession against Sunderland, Chelsea and Brighton before goals from Byran Mbuemo and Patrick Dorgu succumbed Manchester City to their first defeat in 14 games in all competitions on Saturday.

It was as uninspiring and spineless a display Manchester City have shown in a derby for a long time, with Michael Carrick making a breathtaking start to his second stint as Manchester United caretaker after the recent sacking of Ruben Amorim.

In conversation with the club’s official channels after City’s derby defeat across town, Ballon d’Or winner Rodri admitted that the club needs to accept the fact that they are in a period of transition and that days such as Saturday are somewhat inevitable.

“A difficult day but of course, we tried,” the 29-year-old said. “But sometimes, the opponent is better; they had more energy, more legs, more desire to win today than us, even though we didn’t lose face. But at the end, they caught us on counter-attacks, two goals.”

Manchester City were missing several senior players through injury against United, with Guardiola fielding an inexperienced, young backline comprising Rico Lewis, Abdukodir Khusanov, Max Alleyne and Nathan Ake at Old Trafford.

The Blues are in an embryonic period of their transition under director of football Hugo Viana, who has addressed Guardiola’s lack of options in defence by engineering a deal for Crystal Palace captain Marc Guehi, who landed in Manchester on Sunday morning for a medical after City agreed a £20 million fee with Palace this week.

However, the fixture calendar does not get any easier for Manchester City in the coming weeks amid serious concerns over whether the Blues can overturn their fortunes to sustain their aspirations for silverware as the season progresses.

“Football is like this; you lose, you learn, and you move on,” Rodri added. “The young lads are doing brilliant, of course they miss experience sometimes – but we need to help them because they’re going to be important in the next years.

“This is the way you build teams. Sometimes you need to wait a little bit to create something bigger. And it’s our reality we lost many points in the last games, but still we’re second or third. We are there, we’re going to fight until the end.”

Rodri was far from his best against Manchester United but in the backdrop of the most difficult 15 months of his career, the Spain international will be hoping that he can put his injury troubles behind him for good and spearhead City to silverware come the end of the season.