There are two positions in the Manchester City team that feel like the hardest in world football to fill. Back up for Rodri, back up for Ederson.
City know they can’t just have anyone there. The post-Fernandinho era has seen Kalvin Phillips come and go within 18 months and Pep Guardiola now not really owning a proper defensive midfielder as a deputy to the champions’ fulcrum.
It’s why Rodri always appears exhausted, telling the club last summer that he simply cannot play the 56 games he managed during the Treble campaign for fear of doing lasting damage to his fitness.
Finding a player with the ability to stand in but also with the temperament to act as second fiddle for 90 per cent of a season is almost impossible. Something has to give and they are still working through that.
It’s not been too different between the sticks over the years. Claudio Bravo, Aro Muric and Zack Steffen have all, for various reasons, not earned the full trust of management and moved on.
Stefan Ortega, though, presents the opposite problem.
He’s too good for the bench, too good to be wheeled out for cup competitions - and he knows it. It’s to Ortega’s great credit that when Ederson injured his thigh at Anfield on Sunday, little was mentioned about the possible impact that moment may have on the result. He’s steady away, calm on the ball and consistent with his hands.
Guardiola is fearful about the extent of Ederson’s injury. The Brazilian will go for tests to ascertain the damage caused when he raced out in a blind attempt to reach Nathan Ake’s loose back pass, hurting himself while clattering into Darwin Nunez.
Ortega stepped in, as he did in the eighth minute at Newcastle United in January, and performed admirably, helping keep City in the game.
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