Man City could sign dream Rodri replacement who’s already bullied Haaland

It’s no secret that the primary reason behind Manchester City’s enormous downturn in form this season is Rodri’s absence.

The 2024 Ballon d’Or winner ruptured his ACL against Arsenal in late-September, and the Sky Blues’ season has spiralled into oblivion ever since, winning just three of their last 15 matches, staggeringly losing ten of them.

So, with current options İlkay Gündoğan and Mateo Kovačić ill-equipped to fill Rodri’s ginormous void at the base of midfield, will the beleaguered four-in-a-row Premier League champions dip into the January transfer market?

Man City looking at Premier League midfielder

According to reports from Spain earlier this week, Manchester City have ‘set their sights’ on Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Carlos Baleba.

Baleba, a 20-year-old Cameroon international, joined the Seagulls from LOSC Lille in August 2023 for a reported fee of €27m (£23.2m), with the Ligue 1 side retaining a 15% sell-on clause, meaning les Dogues will certainly be hoping Man City make a move.

Baleba has been a key figure for Fabian Hürzeler’s side, starting 15 of the last 18 Premier League matches, while only two outfield Brighton players have accumulated more minutes during this campaign thus far; Kaoru Mitoma and Jan Paul van Hecke, in case you were wondering.

Transfermarkt currently values Baleba at €35m (£29m), but Brighton would surely demand more for one of their most prized assets.

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As noted by Brian Owen of the Argus, the Seagulls have earned a reputation as “tough negotiators”, most notably selling Moisés Caicedo for a British record £115m, as well as Marc Cucurella for a reported £62m, also joining Chelsea, while Benjamin White moved to Arsenal for £50m.

So, if Man City do want to land their man, they’ll have to pay top-dollar, but would Beleba be worth a heavy investment?

How Carlos Baleba would improve Manchester City

Of course, any defensive midfielder Man City sign, or are even interested in signing, will be compared to Rodri, so how do the pair compare?

Despite his current lay-off, since the start of last season, Rodri has played almost exactly double the number of minutes Baleba has, making the Cameroonian’s statistics all the more impressive.

During this timeframe, on a per-90-minute basis, Baleba significantly exceeds Rodri when it comes to tackles and interceptions, but is marginally behind for ball recoveries, underlining that the Brighton man is better out of possession.

Raj Cohan of Premier League Panel on Twitter described Baleba’s halftime introduction during the Seagulls’ win over Man City in November as “game-changing”, adding he had the “power to smash Haaland out of the way”.

On the flip side, Rodri’s in-possession passing numbers are off the scale, attempting close to a pass every minute, while Baleba’s figures are around half that.

Meantime, Rodri completed 546 progressive passes, defined as a pass that moves the ball “at least 30 meters closer to the opponent’s goal”, over eight per game on average, which is a ridiculously high figure.

Nevertheless, Baleba’s out-of-possession, ball-winning proficiency could be a major asset given that, as Barney Ronay for the Guardian noted, Man City keep letting in the same goal on the counter-attack repeatedly, with Pep Guardiola himself saying his team “conceded the goals we didn’t concede” in the past.

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