Manchester City will remain without Rodri as they travel to Crystal Palace in the Premier League this weekend.
The 2024 Ballon d’Or winner has played only a minute of football in more than two months, having suffered a hamstring injury in the 1-0 win at Brentford in early October and later made only a short-lived return off the bench against Bournemouth a few weeks later.
City boss Pep Guardiola said last week that Rodri was “suffering” and “struggling” as he desperately seeks a comeback, but insisted he had to be protected and managed carefully to prevent any further issues being experienced by a player who missed most of last season with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his knee.
He was not involved in either the wins over Sunderland or Real Madrid, though Guardiola insisted that he had not sustained any kind of setback and was “getting better” but still likely “weeks” away from returning.
Guardiola was absent from Friday’s pre-Palace press conference due to a personal matter, with assistant first-team coach Kolo Toure stepping in and saying of Rodri: “Rodri is training well, and his rehab is going well.
“He is looking sharper and sharper. For sure we won’t see him for the weekend but he’s going through the process.”
Rodri’s midfield colleague Mateo Kovacic is also still absent with a long-term ankle injury, while defender John Stones is facing what is expected to be a short spell on the sidelines with what was only described initially as a leg issue.
“It was John’s thigh,” Toure clarified on Friday. “That’s the problem. I’m sure it wasn’t something too big and I think he will be back soon.”
Guardiola named an unchanged team to the one that brushed aside Sunderland for the midweek victory at Real Madrid in the Champions League, and there is certainly an element of if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it for City at the moment amid a four-match winning streak across all competitions.
However, a deep squad offers plenty of options for rotation if they want to keep things fresh at Selhurst Park and avoid placing too heavy a burden on certain players amid a hectic fixture schedule.
Dutch midfielder Tijjani Reijnders will be among those pushing for a start against high-flying Palace in a repeat of last season’s FA Cup final, while Savinho, Omar Marmoush and Oscar Bobb are all decent alternatives in attack.
City’s back four looks settled at the moment with Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol and Nico O’Reilly sitting in front of Gianluigi Donnarumma, though Nathan Ake, Abdukodir Khusanov, Rico Lewis and Rayan Ait-Nouri are other options in that area.
For Egyptian forward Marmoush and Algeria’s Ait-Nouri, it is the final game for which they will be available before heading off to the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco next week.
Predicted Man City XI (4-3-3): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly; Gonzalez, Silva, Reijnders; Foden, Haaland, Doku
Injured: Rodri, Kovacic, Stones
Time and date: 2pm GMT on Sunday December 14, 2025
Venue: Selhurst Park, London
How to watch: Sky Sports
