Rodri complained about Manchester City’s lack of rest on Tuesday night after conceding the Premier League title to Arsenal, but his sense of injustice is more than a little misplaced.
Manchester City’s Rodri spoke to the media on Tuesday night, after his team’s failure to beat AFC Bournemouth confirmed Arsenal as Premier League champions for 2025/26.
Whilst Rodri did begrudgingly offer up congratulations to City’s title rivals, he also took the opportunity to complain about the schedule leading up to the Bournemouth game.
“When you play every three days and then these kind of teams (Bournemouth) have 10 days to rest, it’s a massive difference,” Rodri complained to Canal+ Sport.
“At this level, having this amount of days makes the difference. Today, yeah, we lacked a little bit of energy because we played a final two days ago. The Premier League didn’t want us to rest a little bit more.
“At the end, congratulate Arsenal, they were the better team. And we will try the next season.”
Rodri’s complaint makes sense on the surface, as Bournemouth did indeed have more time to rest than City on this occasion. But when you dig a little deeper, Arsenal have definitely had it worse in terms of the schedule this season.
Both teams will play 38 league games, both reached the League Cup final, but whilst City played two extra matches in the FA Cup, Arsenal will play an extra five in the Champions League (with four games already having been squashed in).
City’s early exit from Europe gave them a couple of long rests, including a nine-day break before their game against Everton on May 4th. Pep Guardiola’s side failed to capitalise on all that rest and drew 3-3.
That same week, Arsenal travelled to Madrid on the Wednesday, then returned to smash Fulham 3-0 on the Saturday.
Most notably, City had the week off before hosting Arsenal, whilst the Gunners had to play in a Champions League quarter-final against Sporting CP in midweek.
Perhaps the title race wouldn’t even have come this far if Arsenal had the chance to rest before the City game, and avoided that damaging Etihad defeat.
There’s no doubt that City have had a slight advantage with the scheduling, thanks to their 5-1 battering by Real Madrid in the Champions League round-of-16.
And the one week City definitely had it harder than Arsenal, they weren’t up to the task. That’s why Mikel Arteta’s side will be lifting the trophy this weekend.
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