Pep Guardiola has revealed that Manchester City midfielder Rodri will not return to full fitness until after the September international break, following a setback suffered at the Club World Cup.
The Spain international picked up a groin injury after coming on against Al Hilal in the last-16, a problem Guardiola described as “big.”
Since returning to the City Football Academy last week, Rodri has mostly trained individually, only joining the main group for the past two sessions.
Despite this progress, he was left out of the squad travelling to Palermo for a weekend friendly and is not ready for a full 90 minutes against Wolves.
Guardiola remains hopeful the Ballon d’Or winner could feature in some capacity against Wolves, Tottenham, and Brighton, but insists the priority is to protect him rather than rush his comeback.
“Rodri is improving, but he suffered a significant injury in the last match against Al Hilal,” Guardiola said. “He’s been training better recently, and we hope that after the international break he’ll be at his best. For now, the most important thing is that he plays without pain, we don’t want him returning only to get injured again.”
Rodri is among four players who stayed behind to recover fitness, alongside Phil Foden, Josko Gvardiol, and Claudio Echeverri.
